


The Haunting of Wisteria Bay

by Kittywitch



Series: A Society of Academics [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/M, Gen, Multi, none of us asked to be in a gothic novel, nothing explicit just being careful, seance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5787895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Baker and Dr. Davison have made the mistake of spending their summer holidays together, and now their households are forced to learn secrets about one another they would have preferred hidden.<br/>None of them asked to be in a gothic novel; but on a windy, ancient house by the sea filled with secrets and populated by a madman, his young wife, underslept professor, several teenagers, a medium, the spirits he appears to command, and a mysterious apparition, it seemed unavoidable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

 

I.

            It was three days after the end of term at Transcendental Academy, and most of the professors were savouring the respite from being surrounded by a crowd of young people for several hours a day. This was not an option open to Dr. Davison, as he had taken it upon himself to be a surrogate father to a number of youths. He had developed an unfortunate habit of rescuing young people, and unlike many of his colleagues, he took an interest in their lives post-peril. In this manner, he had acquired far more of a family than the bachelor had ever expected or intended. Still, he was hardly about to ship any of them off just to simplify his life, even if he could possibly choose one to leave.

The younger girl was probably furthest from the top of that particular list, if for no other reason then most of the trouble Nyssa got into wasn’t the result of her saying something smart or doing something foolish. The youngest, Adric, had just turned fifteen and was extremely touchy about being mistaken for any other age, while his eldest, Tegan, was just touchy in general.

            Lastly, there was Turlough. Vislor Turlough, but he never answered to his Christian name, when he deemed to answer at all. He was comparatively new to the group, and as of yet he offered very little information about where he had been before Dr. Davison came across him in a home for boys displaced by war.

Of course, there was also the Fifth Ward, but that hardly counted towards his brood. That was a machine, merely called a ward because of Dr. Davison’s habit of surrounding himself with children. True, he did think that this holiday would be the perfect situation to examine it, and true, he did chuckle to himself that it would have been so much easier to prepare for the holiday if he could as easily pack each of his children in a steamer trunk and ship them to Wisteria Bay in the cargo. He didn’t say this aloud, as this is not the sort of thing one says if one is interested in continuing to either raise or teach children.

            The past three days would have tried the patience of a saint, and Dr. Davison was many things, but sainted was certainly not one of them. True, it was often remarked that he was one of the most kind-hearted and pleasant members of the club he frequented; but those unfamiliar with the other members would have missed that was a subtle dig at the other members. In reality, it was quite easy to upset Dr. Davison and set him off squeaking like an offended Pomeranian. But at least his mental bill of health was far cleaner than that of many of his colleagues.

            Unfortunately for Dr. Davison, he had committed to letting one of these men share his holiday. While he did wish to extend his hospitality to a young woman he very nearly adopted, it simply didn’t do to not invite her husband along, and thus Dr. Davison was going to spend the next three months in a beach house with all of his children _and_ Dr. Baker, who was a rather lot like another child, except that he was eleven years his senior.

The Bakers had only been married for three years at this point, but some people find themselves squabbling like old married couples on the day that they met, and on occasion, these people set to becoming them in reality as well as figurative speech as quickly as possible. They certainly seemed to age the other by their shared presence and the open frustration that seemed to constantly flow between the two. They were not the sort of couple that most people would choose to spend their holiday with, particularly someone as in desperate need of unwinding as Dr. Davison. It hardly occurred to him that they would accept his invitation until it was too late. What was worse was that he then had to appear gracious as Dr. Baker completely rewrote his plans for the holiday. While it was true that the guest rooms in the Baker’s country house would be far better accommodations than the seaside hotel Dr. Davison had been considering, and unlike the hotel, free of charge, the presumption frustrated Dr. Davison to no end. Other than Nyssa, who quite sensitive to other’s moods, his wards didn’t seem to notice, however, as mild frustration was his default emotion. Then again, he hadn’t abandoned the possibility that Nyssa wasn’t actually unusually sensitive unless held in comparison to the rest of the family.

 

 

The Davison family, such as it was, milled around the train station somewhat aimlessly. Neither the train nor the party they expected to meet with were on time. Which, while to be expected, was still dreadfully annoying.

In the centre, the de facto father’s head bobbed about like a blond buoy attempting to keep track of four teenagers, three luggage trolleys, and a large steamer trunk all at once. For once in his life, Adric was actually the easiest to keep track of. Someone, Dr. Davison wasn’t sure who, had deeply insulted the boy and he was now sulking on top of the steamer trunk with his chin in his hands and his feet barely skimming the floor. He was not a tall lad and he looked even younger than his fifteen years sitting on top of the trunk like a doll, particularly given that an unmarried college professor with four children could hardly replace each child’s wardrobe with every growth spurt and this left Adric in a rather childish mustard-yellow sailor tunic noticeably too short in the wrists and knickerbockers that now had to be buckled above the knee.

The elder children, sixteen at the youngest and nineteen at the eldest, were moving around the train station as if they were trying their dead-level best to get lost in the holiday crowd. Dr. Davison could have hardly reined in their interest if he tried, which he was not liable to do because at least then they usually got into trouble one at a time.

While Tegan was comparing every aspect of trains to airbuses and explaining them to someone, Dr. Davison couldn’t see who, Nyssa had wandered off to examine some of the clockwork in the automated ticket-taker, and Dr. Davison’s knowledge of Turlough’s location was limited to the fact four wards had left the cab with him when they reached the train station. Still, he would have been more comfortable knowing Nyssa’s precise location, as carrying smelling salts hardly did her any good if he wasn’t there to use them when she swooned. Dr. Davison wasn’t entirely sure if crowds were among the things that would cause Nyssa to faint, but he wasn’t ready to rule it out.

There was a sudden nudge at the young professor’s side. He turned and nearly jumped when he saw how close Turlough was standing to him. He had little time to wonder how long the lad had been there, as the young man immediately started talking.

“What does Dr. Baker look like? And Mrs. Baker?” asked Turlough.

“You shall know them when you see them.” said Dr. Davison charitably. “Dr. Baker has a… a rather _distinctive_ sense of fashion.”

“That’s very vague, doctor.”

“Well—it suffices to say that the Bakers are not themselves vague. They are… loud. That’s it. In their dress, their voices, and their behaviour; the Bakers are loud.” Dr. Davison explained. Turlough was clearly perplexed.

“How does one _behave_ loudly?” he asked. Dr. Davison did not answer this question himself, but an interruption from halfway across the platform ensured he did not have to.

 

“We should have taken your brother’s car!”

“You speak as if he would have lent it to me!”

“You could have at least asked!”

“I have my own means, Perpugilliam! Half the lands are mine, half the house is mine, half the country estate is mine, and I will not beg a thing off of him.” finished the louder of the two rather loud voices. Dr. Davison and Turlough turned rather slowly in place and faced the source of the argument. There were two trolleys stacked to precarious levels with trunks, hatboxes, and carpetbags, and behind them were two people who looked at each other like they were the only people in the world, and therefore the only people who could hear their argument.

Mrs. Baker wore a dress that only looked demure in comparison to what her husband was wearing. She had about as much bosom exposed as the rest of the station combined, though to be fair, Dr. Davison’s wards were not the only ones with high collars. She was undoubtedly a very beautiful woman, and it was likely people would have been staring at her even if she weren’t shouting. Walking slightly more ahead of than beside her, Dr. Baker strode elegantly through the crowd as if he were not pushing a trolley, having a domestic, and just generally being a spectacle.

If Dr. Davison had been hoping that Dr. Baker would appear in a better mood or suit than he came to work in, he would have been sorely disappointed. No, it wasn’t even that it was a _bad_ suit. It was beautifully cut and did everything for his ample frame that it could, but someone had the brilliant idea of saving fabric by using the scrap ends of a half a dozen different projects and sewing them into a single suit. His coattails flapped behind him like some sort of tropical bird.

As the Bakers approached, Dr. Davison’s girls pulled out of the crowd in order to properly frame him, not quite hiding behind their chaperone but definitely not standing in front of him. Adric even took his head out of his hands and gawped at the newcomers. Turlough nervously rebuttoned his jacket but other than that did his best to appear unflapped. The couple continued to yatter angrily at one another with no apparent care for who heard them.

 

“But if we took the car, then you wouldn’t have had the argument with the cab driver.”

“He attempted to overcharge us!”

“By what… two cents?”

“It’s not the tuppence, it’s the principle of the matter! I’d have tipped as much if he hadn’t tried to swindle us.” Dr. Baker huffed. “And for that matter, it’s not two cents, it’s tuppence. You’ve lived in England for how many years now? One would think that in half a decade you would have learned something of our currency!”

“Yeah, one would think that, if I was allowed to do the shopping.”

“Oh yes, I forgot. I starve you and keep you hidden away in rags with none of the comforts of home. If I can offer you nothing beyond not having to arrange your next meal yourself I’d be a very poor sort of husband, wouldn’t I?”

“I’m not complaining about that! I just don’t know when I was supposed to learn how to sound as stuck up as you.”

“We can argue about this on the train.” Dr. Baker groused. “We’re probably holding up Davison’s party at this rate.”

“Not quite yet, I’m afraid.” Dr. Davison called. He did not so much wave a handkerchief in the air to get Dr. Baker’s attention as raise his hand after covering his cough with one. It was the idea of the thing, really. Besides, this was one of the handkerchiefs monogrammed with a red question mark. Precisely twelve men, with one man who had purposely returned his, owned this style of handkerchief. The handkerchiefs themselves were not secret as such, but it didn’t do to wave the sign of a rather exclusive club above one’s head in a crowded railway station.

The Bakers increased to that polite sort of run that doesn’t speed one up at all but does indicate to whoever watches that one isn’t dawdling; the run employed by someone crossing in front of a stopped vehicle or when approaching a friend. Or in this case, a coworker. As soon as the trolley was at a complete stop, Dr. Davison offered Dr. Baker his hand.

“It’s good to see you again.” he said. It wasn’t quite a lie, Dr. Davison wasn’t _unhappy_ to see the Bakers, just somewhat concerned that he would be a good deal happier when the whole lot of them were on their return trip. It was a brief, unemotional handshake that both men seemed eager to release.

“Yes, indeed.” said Dr. Baker with just enough formality to hide the irony. “Good to see you as well, Dr. Davison.”

“Please. We’re on holiday. Call me Peter.” said Dr. Davison with that very British smile that communicated “please for the love of God never call me Peter.”

 

Peri gave a much warmer smile to Dr. Davison, then passed it around the entire group. It ended on her husband, where it hardened into the expression that wasn’t a smile so much as a notification that a wife was smiling and that a husband was going to start doing the same or else be very sorry. Dr. Baker obediently smiled.

“It’s good of you to join us.” she said.

“Yes.” Dr. Davison coughed politely. “Yes, of course it was good of you to have us. It can be such a trouble organising a party of this size.”

“We don’t mind at all.” said Mrs. Baker, slipping a hand into the crook of her husband’s elbow. “It’s an embarrassingly big house and it gets lonely really quickly. And honestly, he’ll do anything not to be in the house at the same time as his brother.”

“ _Perpugilliam_!” he hissed.

“Well, we all know about annoying brothers, don’t we?” Tegan offered. She gave Adric a smile he did not return.

            “Ah. Yes. Have you met my children?” Dr. Davison offered as a change of subject.

            “I’m nearly twenty years old.” Tegan pointed out crossly. This comment was ignored. Dr. Davison clapped a hand onto Adric’s shoulder and vaguely pointed him at the Bakers.

            “This is Adric, my youngest. He’ll be a bit more personable after lunch, I imagine. And there’s Nyssa, darling girl, clever, gets on with everyone, wish they were all a bit more like her, Tegan’s introduced herself in her own way, I suppose. And Turlough… Turlough’s only been with us for a month, but he’s getting on well. Well, he’s getting on. Aren’t you, Turlough?” Dr. Davison asked. In response, Turlough proved himself a master of the dark glare that makes teenage boys look like murderers.

            “Of course, Dr. Davison.. Peter.” said Turlough. The look of resigned disgust Dr. Davison exchanged with Turlough actually stopped off the boy’s glare. Tegan regarded Mrs. Baker curiously. Yes, she was quite pretty indeed, and she must have had the patience of a saint under her snide comments. If Tegan had been forced into marrying Dr. Baker, he would probably find himself in some dreadful, inexplicable accident by the end of the year, or Tegan would have disappeared like smoke, never to be heard of in society again. She preferred to think that the second scenario was more likely, but what few conversations with Dr. Baker she had made her unwilling to rule out the first one just yet.

Both just under twenty, pretty, orphaned, foreign, and with a mouth that a dowager would credit with the downfall of society, the first difference that society would notice between Perpugilliam and Tegan was that Mrs. Baker was married and miss Jovanka was not. Of course, some would argue that there was a distinctive difference between Americans and Australians, but to the truly academic, they were all just foreigners from barely civilised countries who murdered the English language.

 

 

            “It’s very good of you both to open your country home to us for the summer.” said Dr. Davison politely. There was a pause as if he was expecting something to follow this. “Isn’t it, children?” There was a vague grumbling through the collection of wards which didn’t actually contain much by way of words but communicated a sort of grudging loyalty to their guardian, frustration at being referred to as children, and a half-hearted attempt to hide the dread of spending three months with a couple who were gauche enough to willing to argue about money in a public railway station. Hopefully the whole situation would be less profoundly awkward when there was no longer the opportunity to run across the station, board another train, and avoid the entire holiday tempting everyone. It could hardly become more awkward.

            “I think we’d all best get on.” Dr. Baker huffed, resettling his coat. “There’s a lot of trunks to get into the luggage car, and a lot of _us_ for the riders. We can… continue this scintillating conversation once we’re all settled, I think.”

 

            The was a general murmur of assent from the group, and Adric only exclaimed softly when Tegan pushed him off the steamer trunk so they could move the trollies. Dr. Davison and Mrs. Baker, the most adamant that this was going to be an enjoyable journey even if someone died in the process, took the lead in the ragged little caravan of travellers.

            “We haven’t been to Wisteria Bay since we were first married.” said Peri. “I think it will be an adventure for all of us.”

            “Adventure, yes.” Dr. Davison smiled. “I do like the sound of that word.”

            “I never have.” Turlough added, breezing past them.


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bakers and the Davisons arrive at Wisteria Bay, beaten about the shoulders with heavy-handed foreshadowing.

II.

            The city had long since retreated from the windows of the train and the teenagers had settled into not only their seats but also their various ruts. What that rut was varied from reading quietly to rolling their eyes at every other sentence to repeating questions incessantly, such as what the house was like, if there would be any visitors like those house parties you always read about and when was the meal they’d been promised going to come. Although he had taken a small book out of his jacket, Dr. Davison himself was not reading. Rather, he was staring out into the corridor and quietly fuming, and he looked quite liable to explode if any of the children asked him another question. If he were to say that aloud, there would doubtless be a debate on whether or not his charges were still young enough to be considered children. He was comfortable thinking they were, but he was also comfortable thinking of Dr. Baker as one as well.

            There was at least the small favour that house at Wisteria Bay was significantly larger than this train compartment, and they would probably find themselves in the awkward position of all gathered together facing one another at dinner. Dr. Baker, being more familiar with the dining table and the fact it was larger than the train compartment privately hoped the extra space would help with the awkward silences.

            “I have a question.” said Adric.

            “There will be a woman with a trolley coming by in a few minutes, stop asking!” Dr. Baker snapped.

            “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.” Adric said petulantly.

            “I don’t think shouting at the boy will help anything.” said Dr. Davison.

            “Oh, we were all thinking it!” Dr. Baker huffed.

            “Leave it, Dr. Baker.” said Tegan. “He can handle yelling at us himself.”

            “I do _not_ yell at you!” Dr. Davison protested shrilly.

            “What do you call that, then?”

            “I am _offended,_ I am not _yelling._ ”

            “He’s not.” said Peri. “There’s a whole range before you get all the way to yelling.” She made hand gestures to indicate a scale.

            “There’s scolding, then there’s being shrill, then there’s shouting, then yelling, then screaming. He’s only up to being shrill, but he might go higher.”

            “Thank you Peri, that helped a great deal.” Dr. Davison muttered.

            “Dr. Baker, can you tell us more about the house we’re travelling to? Has your family owned the property long?” asked Nyssa in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

            “One moment, are we just moving on from that? Not one of you defended me. I do _not_ squeak.” Dr. Davison protested, his voice rising to what was unmistakably a squeak.

            “You’re doing it right now.” said Tegan with a not entirely nice laugh. He opened his mouth in silent offense. Or his had simply gone too high for human ears to hear.

            “But when _is_ the cart coming? Does it have a schedule?” Adric repeated.

            “It won’t come any faster with you asking about it.” Nyssa pointed out, closing her book. “I thought you had a bag of sweets.”

            “That was nearly half an hour ago.” Adric protested. “I’m a growing boy!” he insisted.

            “Yeah, sideways.” Peri murmured. Turlough smiled appreciatively at her.

            “I’ll need a lot more than that to be half as fat as your husband.” Adric retorted. Turlough’s slight admiration shifted to Adric.

            “Fat‽” Dr. Baker demanded. “Fat? Fat, indeed! It’s just a bit of padding, young man, and if I had spoken about my elders in such a way when I was your age, I wouldn’t be here to tell about it! Why is it that children haven’t the least bit of courtesy between them these days!”

            “It’s a positive marvel, when we have such marvellous role models.” Tegan replied coolly.

            “I’m _not_ a child, I’m fifteen!” Adric shouted.

            “Then you can jolly well act like it and stop whinging about your belly for a full ten minutes!”

            “Again, role models.” Peri shot, mostly to Tegan and mostly sympathetically. Tegan didn’t look particularly open to that sympathy. Then again, the only member of the party who looked remotely pleased with the situation was Turlough, whose eyes shifted between the arguing parties like a spectator at a tennis match.

            “I get the feeling this is going to a really, _really_ long trip.” Peri sighed. “Maybe we could try and not kill each other until the train actually stops?”

            “Don’t know, it might be a nice group activity.” Dr. Davison grumbled.

            “Yes.” Turlough smiled nastily. “We can all kill one of the others and leave the rest of the train to figure out who killed who.”

            “Who killed _whom_.” Dr. Baker corrected. Turlough narrowed his eyes at him.

            “I think I’ve made my selection.”

            “You don’t enjoy travelling, do you Turlough?” Dr. Baker asked dryly.

            “They stopped arguing, what more do you want?” Dr. Davison asked.

            “Savour the moment.” Adric muttered at the window. “It won’t last long.”

            “Would it be possible to postpone any talk of murder until we at least arrive?” Dr. Davison asked tersely. “We ought to at least start off in holiday mood.”

            “After all, we’ll have a full three months to be miserable.” Turlough grumbled.

            “There was a game that we played at family gatherings when I was young.” Tegan mused. “We would stage a murder mystery where each of the guests was a suspect, we would all try to figure out who really committed the ‘murder’ and it was the murderer’s role to kill everyone else before that happened.”

            “That sounds positively barbaric!” Adric gasped.

            “Well, she couldn’t very well help that.” Dr. Davison explained. “She’s Australian.”

            “I wouldn’t say that it’s barbaric at all. We had a very similar game in Russia.” Nyssa defended. “All the ‘dead’ players wore red silk scarves to indicate they weren’t playing anymore. You could also wear one if you wanted to opt out of the game altogether.”

            “And ‘kill’ yourself?” Adric asked sceptically.

            “It sounds a bit silly, but it could be quite good fun.”

            “We tried that once in my family, too.” said Peri.

            “What happened?” asked Dr. Davison. Peri rolled her eyes.

            “We’re Americans, what do you think happened? We couldn’t keep it up a whole night because everyone decided to ‘kill’ everyone they suspected of being the killer within the first two hours. My uncle actually pulled his gun out for-” Here Mrs. Baker thrust her belly forward and barked in a bad Texan accent, “ ‘Verisimilitude!’ ”

            The English in the compartment looked mortified.

            “…it wasn’t loaded.” said Peri as if that made all the difference.

            “Perhaps we might turn the conversation towards a brighter subject?” Dr. Davison suggested. “There’s plenty to look forward to about this trip. Plenty of things that don’t involve killing each other, even if it’s meant in fun. Perhaps we might share something we’re looking forward to about the holiday. Each of us, in turn.” Dr. Baker gaped at Dr. Davison as if he had just suggested they pass the time by performing an autopsy, but his wife smiled in relief.

            “Good idea. Tegan’s at the end, so she could start.” said Peri. “We can just go around until… until we run out.”

            “Shan’t take long.” Adric grumbled.

            “You’re not serious, surely?” Tegan asked. “Going about in a circle, talking in turn? Doesn’t that sound a bit childish to you?”

            “Particularly when petty bickering all across the compartment is so very mature.” said Dr. Baker.

            “I already suggested the murder mystery game.”

            “Perhaps you might suggest bare knuckle boxing next?” Dr. Baker asked tersely, exposing more teeth than was nessiary.

Dr. Davison wrung his hands over the novel in his lap as if he really wanted to stuff them into his pockets but couldn’t do that while sitting. Finally he let out another forced smile and looked around the compartment.

            “I find it’s always quite lovely to leave the city. Get a bit of fresh air and healthy exercise. Plenty of opportunity for that at the seaside, we can all swim and play cricket and get some much needed fresh air and sunshine.”

            “Personally, I find fresh air and sunshine highly overrated.”

            “Adric!” Dr. Davison scolded. He shook his head at Mrs. Baker.

            “This is exactly what I mean, though.” he continued. “We’re all in sour moods from being cooped up in a tight compartment like this. Perhaps a nice walk over the grounds when we reach the house? Stretch our legs a bit.”

            “When we reach Wisteria Bay, we should just unpack, have dinner, and go to bed.” said Dr. Baker firmly. “That’s what he always did when Thomas and I were lads. A long train ride takes more out of you then you might think.” Dr. Davison nodded at Dr. Baker.

            “Go on then, tell us about the happy memories you have of the place. It’s your turn in any case.” he said with forced brightness. Dr. Baker cocked an eyebrow.

            “Your turn, _Colin_.” Dr. Davison repeated. “I’m sure you have had some happy times in your childhood home?” Dr. Baker smiled nastily at him.

            “Yes, and what I hope to get from this trip is some recollection of them.” he said with that unpleasant smile. His wife gave a long-suffering sigh of exasperation.

“It will be nice to get away from the cats for a while. I have to take this herbal tincture at home, or I can barely breathe.” Dr. Baker stared at his wife, clearly horrified.

            “You didn’t bring the ephedrine hydrochloride vapour?” he asked, aghast.

            “No.” she replied, looking worried. “I won’t need it at the seaside, will I? It’s just your cats I’m allergic to. I breathe fine whenever I’m out of the house, even if it’s just in the greenhouse.”

            “Peri, I have cats at the country house as well!”

            “ _What?_ ” Peri squawked. “But- but you didn’t bring any of your cats. You actually said goodbye to your cats! You said goodbye to all twenty-eight of them!”

            “All thirty-one[1], lady MacBeth had kittens.”

            “ _I’m_ about to have kittens!” Mrs. Baker shrieked. Nyssa nudged Adric.

            “I believe it’s your turn.” she offered. He looked sideways at her.

            “I hope to eat before we leave.” he said shortly. He turned back to the window and it was fairly clear that they weren’t going to be getting any more from him. Nyssa sighed and glanced around the compartment.

            “Well… I haven’t been to a house party since I came to England.” she said slowly. “Some of them were quite enjoyable back home. Turlough?”

            “I won’t be on this train.” said Turlough. Adric glanced over at him.

            “You are looking a bit green. Doctor, I think he’s going to be sick on us.”

            “And what precisely am I supposed to do about that?” Dr. Baker demanded.

            “Not you, Dr. Davison.”

            “Oh, because I am _far_ better equipped to deal with Turlough’s travel sickness.”           

            “I don’t have travel sickness.” Turlough insisted, although he wasn’t looking terribly well. “I just want to get off of this train as soon as I can.”

            “And obviously not because of any travel sickness.” Dr. Davison commented dryly. “Adric, switch places with Turlough.”

            “No!” he whined. “I want the window seat! I asked for it before we even got on the train!”

            “Will you want it when Turlough is sick all over us?”

            “I’m not sick!” Turlough insisted.

            “It’s _always_ me who has to give up things for the others!”

            “That’s not true, and if you weren’t such a self-centred little prat you’d know that.” said Tegan. “You just never notice if anyone else is put out because _they aren’t you._ ”

            “I’ll switch with Turlough!” Peri snapped, sitting up. “Geez…” Awkwardly, the two stood and switched places, attempting not to tread any toes in the process, and very nearly succeeding. Adric rubbed his foot and muttered something to the extent of Turlough doing that on purpose.

            “I am so glad we have no children…” Dr. Baker moaned, putting his face in his hands. “Peter, remind me to invite your brood along if at any time the prospect of carrying along the Baker line comes up.”

            It seemed that Turlough’s seat was in the perfect corner to create travel sickness, as it was Peri’s turn to look slightly green.

            “No children, unless we count you.” said Peri crossly. “You weren’t exactly doing much to help the situation.”

            “What would you have me do, Perpugilliam?!” Dr. Baker demanded. “There’s nothing I could do to keep this lot in line short of drugging the lot of them and rolling their bodies into a row!”

            “What do you mean, ‘in line’?” Tegan demanded.

            “For heaven’s sake! We’ve been collected into this party for less than three hours!” Dr. Davison shrieked. “I shudder to think of what the _rest_ of the holiday will be like!”

            With that, he stood, threw his novel into his seat, stormed out of the compartment, and slammed the door after him. The rest of the party stared after him in stunned silence. It was Mrs. Baker who finally broke the silence.

            “That man really needs a vacation.” Peri murmured.

            “What that man needs is a sedative and fainting couch.” her husband replied.

 

❦ ❦ ❦

 

            While none of them could consider the train ride a pleasant one, when they arrived they wondered if it was only the start of their troubles. They knew that they had reached North Yorkshire by the voices of the people at the train station.

Even with his breeding, it was clear that Dr. Baker must have spent as much of his time in the London house as possible for so little of the country to have affected him. At the moment he tugged his coat out of the way of passersby with unhidden distain, as if Dr. Baker was still considered about Yorkshire rubbing off on him, one way or another. The idea of being so close to “home” seemed to have put him into a sour mood. Well, a slightly different sour mood than the one he had on the train, so Tegan immediately broke off to have a look around the train station and possibly find them a cab. Admittedly, she didn’t have the sort of money to transport seven people and their luggage anywhere, but perhaps she might start off the conversation on a better note than some of the others. For one thing, she worked in travel herself, being an airbus conductorette, and this would either smooth things along or sniff out any deceit. And, slightly more immediate, it would get her out the range of the people she wanted so dearly to throttle. The other women were the only two who weren’t on this list, and in Peri’s case it was only because a verbal dressing-down would be more satisfying.

            Tegan spotted a cluster of aircabs hanging around outside the train station and detached herself from the group to examine them more closely. The largest of them by far was a weathered brown cab, its gasbag tugging impatiently at the mooring. The gondola resembled nothing so much as an old stagecoach, in fact Tegan suspected it might have been retrofitted when air travel began so ubiquitous. She stared so intently, and so closely, she happened to draw some attention to herself.

            “Yer not the first spotter I’ve seen today, but ye sure are the prettiest by a long shot.” said what an idle eye more interested in the gasbag had assumed was part of the backboard. The backboard, or rather, the old man who had been lying across it sat up and hopped down to Tegan’s level. The conductorette started, slightly taken aback. She chided herself immediately and took a more dignified posture, one that didn’t look like she was preparing to beat the strange man with her carpetbag.

            If he noticed her surprise, he didn’t make any sign of it. From the look of things, when the stagecoach had been retrofitted for the modern convenience of air travel and polished up for its place in the 1880s, its driver had not been told and carried on as if it were a hundred years earlier. Judging by his face, that might have been when he was born. Few of his features were visible behind gray hair and beard that didn’t look like it had been trimmed since his clothes were in fashion. He chewed on a pipe, but Tegan couldn’t be sure if it was lit or it was just a prop to impress city folk fresh off of the train.

Her first impression was of an old dog: possibly a grizzled gray borzoi, all bones and hair and odd angles. Specifically, an old dog one of her uncles kept when she was a child. It was several years older than her and every time it went down for a nap, Tegan couldn’t be quite sure if it was dead or just sleeping with it’s tongue out. Unlike the dog, Tegan didn’t need to touch him to find out the man was still alive. Or dead, for that matter; the only good thing about _that_ particular memory is that it only happened once, and Tegan attempted to put it from her mind.

            “I didn’t mean to be rude,” Tegan said earnestly. “I was just looking for an aircab large enough to take my party up… well, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what the address is.”

            “Oh, ye made quite the journey, haven’t ye?” the man chuckled. “What’s that accent? Kiwi?”

            “Australian, actually.” she corrected. “But not anytime recently, I’ve spent the past year in London with my guardian. Compared to that, the train wasn’t a journey at all, Mr…?”

            “Masterson, lass. Just call me ol’ Black, everyone does round here.”

Tegan paused somewhat awkwardly, looking around to see if any of her adoptive family or the Bakers were still in the line of sight. There was a tall figure in beige attempting to keep a smaller figure in yellow from getting too close to the tracks, and she could hear the Bakers arguing. Perhaps Nyssa was still on the train? Or trying to find a cab, like she was. Tegan’s attention returned to the old man and his cab.

            “This is a lovely aircab you’ve got.”

            “Ye keen on air travel, are ye lass?” asked Masterson.

            “Oh, it’s the only way to travel!” Tegan chirped, brighter than she had been since they left London. “Really, I was hoping that we’d be able to make the full journey in the air, but there weren’t any heading in this direction. At least, not fitting our party. Three young ladies, two young men, a doctor, and I think our host has a title, but he only ever goes by ‘Doctor’. Half the men I know do, it’s enough to make your eyes roll back.”

            “Will wonders never cease? An eye for aircraft an’ respectable, too.”

            “And I take it that your fine little cab is for hire?” Tegan asked. “Do you think it could take five—no, seven, forgive me—seven passengers? Oh, and the luggage. We’ve all got some, but Dr. Davison packed like he was moving. I don’t think there’s a thing he left in his study.”

            “It’s no trouble at all, lass.” said the man. “If it’s in the town limits, I can get the lot of you there.”

“Ah. The address.” Tegan touched her mouth thoughtfully. Her vision edged around the aircraft. “I’d have to ask our host that, all I know it’s near the sea but nearer a moor. Built by a bay, I believe.”

The man straightened his back and took a long draw on his pipe. Tegan considered how it was that in the city, a man with a pipe looked intellectual, but in the country, he looked like he thought books were probably the devil’s work.

            “Ye wouldn’t be speakin’ of Wisteria Bay, would ye, lass?”

“Yes, that’s the name!” Tegan nodded, drawing her eyes away from the fins on the aircab. “Do you know the place?”

            “Aye. I do.” he asked slowly. “Ye haven’t… ye haven’t bought that property have ye? Not the old Baker house?”

            “No, no, no.” Tegan laughed. “The Bakers are having a house party. I’m one of the guests. Dr. and Mrs. Baker are here…” she glanced over her shoulder. “…somewhere.”

            “Hm. That married one is it? I wouldn’t have the luck for it be his da.” the old man chewed the end of his pipe angrily, like he had a lot more he wanted to say but wasn’t about to say it to a young lady. Especially not one with an interest in aircabs.

            “You know him then?” Tegan asked.

            “Hmpf. By reputation, an’ that’s closer to him than I wanted to get. Watch yerself around that one, lass. It’s said…” He trailed off and chewed on the end of his pipe again.

            “He was certainly a handful on the ride over…”

            “Handful, ha!” he laughed mirthlessly. “Fancy ‘im comin’ back here like the cat who caught the canary. Mad he is, utterly mad, ought to be locked away if ye ask me. Everyone here knows he’s mad. Everyone here knows what he done…”

            “What _has_ Dr. Baker done?”

            “Naught for the ears of a fine young lady like yourself,” he growled, pointing with his pipe. “I’ll take ye up to the bay, but ye need to promise me, lock up yer bedroom every night. Lock it tight an’ bar it. Never take yer eyes off that man. He got sommat wrong here, up here where it can’t be healed by no doctor.” The man tapped his temple.

            “Now ye best go on back to yer party an’ tell ‘em ye found ol’ Black, I’ll get ye lot up in the air afore the hour.”

            “But how much will it cost? You haven’t see how many people we have with us, or our luggage-”

            “I’ll take the party an’ their carpetbags tonight. I’ll have my boy take the trunks up when it’s light tomorrow. An’ it won’t matter either way what I charge Dr. Baker, because I knows he’s good for it to the last penny, and he knows I’m the only aircab that’ll take him within a acre of that damnable place.”

            With that, Masterson swung himself into the coach and began making adjustments, leaving Tegan to collect her party and attempt not to wonder what he had meant about Dr. Baker.

 

❦ ❦ ❦

 

            “Ah! The countryside! Smell that fresh air!” Dr. Davison cried out in joy, spreading his arms. Adric, who had been following him closely, ducked just in time to not be hit in the face.

            “I’m just glad to be out of it in one piece,” Turlough grumbled from somewhere near the back of the cab. He appeared to be doing his best to melt into the cushions, and the cushions were willing to take him in as one of their own.

            “You aren’t a very good traveller, are you Turlough? You looked quite sick on the train…” Tegan began. He cut her off.

            “I just don’t think that this cab was meant to carry these many people.” he grumbled. Masterson shot him a murderous look, which Turlough happened not to catch, due to realising that the house didn’t just look large from the air because of the distance. Behind them, Dr. Baker helped his wife leave the aircab. Perhaps this would have been a far more gentlemanly act if someone other than Dr. Baker had done it, as he essentially took Peri round the waist and all but flung her into the air. The aircab had landed alongside a stone wall, just tall enough that Adric was aware that climbing over it would be a bad idea. Beyond it stood the house at Wisteria Bay. It was probably _not_ the largest building he had ever seen in his life, but it was certainly the largest one he knew was owned by a single family. Most people did not own houses larger than private schools. He had difficulty guessing the number of storeys, partially due to the fact that one part of the house was unlikely to be entirely even with any other part. There were varying levels of mansard roofs and a widow’s walk that was likely to be high enough to be used as an airdock, provided your ship was smaller than the cab they had taken. The walls were covered in dark, weathered shingles that contrasted sharply with the overall decadent architecture. Climbing plants, Peri could recognise two kinds of ivy and some of that wisteria she presumed the house was named for, were making a game attempt to cover the entire east side of the house. It was an incredibly impressive house to be sure, but the way that the gardens climbed the walls and the iron rails stood against the gray sky made the whole building look like an ink sketch in a gothic novel.

            The house itself was imposing enough without the surrounding countryside. It squatted like a toad on the moors, stretching away to a gray haze in the distance. To the west, the moorland gave way to cliffs and a stretch of beach that Dr. Davison would no doubt describe as ‘jolly’ despite the fact it looked more like a place someone would throw a body into the sea to hide it then a place one would take their family on holiday. Unless one happened to be Dr. Davison. His wards fought back various levels of apprehension, ranging from Turlough’s questioning his choice to let the man become his guardian, Nyssa smiling bravely and assuring herself that it would all look better when the weather improved, Adric’s sullen acceptance that this would not be a pleasant holiday for him and therefore not a pleasant one for anyone who had to deal with him, and Tegan’s sudden desire to get back in the aircab and return to London straightaway. It was not so much that the house was isolated, or that it had that slight air of disrepair about it that was off-putting.

            “How rich _are_ the Bakers?” Adric whispered to Tegan. She took another look at the house before answering.

            “I’m not sure, but I think it’s clear Dr. Baker doesn’t work for the salary.”

 

            Nyssa was the only one who could put her finger on what was so distressing about the dark house straightaway. The shingles were loose, the iron unscrubbed, but there on the walk stood a staff of over twenty people. If they were not keeping the house in a presentable state, what were they so busy with? Were they simply not keeping up a standard most rich houses would expect, or was there another task that the staff were so busy with that the grounds could reach their current state?           

            Though Nyssa couldn’t help but wonder about the staff, there was something else off-putting about the building, something that she didn’t attempt to describe to anyone else, for as soon as she tried to form words around it the feeling subsided, like the disorientation when the aircab took to the sky.

            Unlike most of their companions, Nyssa and Mrs. Baker had been seen a staff presentation before and knew that it was unusual for the staff to be looking directly at the arriving family, much less _glaring_ at the closest employer present. Nyssa wondered to herself if the other Dr. Bakers received this treatment or if their host, in particular, had done something to make the staff cross. Perhaps it was the house party? Did the staff feel it was beneath them to host a common professor and his brood? But no, then they would have more disdain for the other members of the party, and all of the sour expressions were focused on Dr. Baker. Nyssa searched the crowd for someone who didn’t look cross; though she found someone she couldn’t claim to be pleased by the discovery.

            One of the maids, barely older than herself, was biting her lip and trying not to cry. The one next to her squeezed her hand surreptitiously, trying to hide the movement behind their skirts. Nyssa made an immediate note that, despite protocol, she would make an effort to be especially nice to that particular maid and hopefully figure out what had upset her.

Dr. Baker had seen a presentation of this particular staff and knew that it _was_ normal for the staff to be looking at him like that. He frowned, all but grinding his teeth. It was one thing for the staff to glare at _him_ like that, but his wife had done nothing to deserve that and his guests certainly had not. He settled his coat, attempting and failing to hide his frustration and strode towards the door without looking at any of them. He wasn’t able to keep this up the entire walk, however, and came to a stop at the front steps to face the two who stood there.

            The butler and housekeeper stood nearest the door. While neither of them was unattractive, they appeared to be holding a contest between them to see who could appear the dourest. There was no clear winner at this point. If the Bakers looked loudly dressed in London, now that they were surrounded by the dull greys and unsaturated greens of the landscape, and the endless black and white uniforms of the staff, their bright clothing stood out like bloodstains.

            The butler smiled at Dr. Baker---it wasn’t a nice smile at all, more the expression of a boy who had just pulled the wings off a of a fly and was now watching it crawl away—and directed his attention to the Davison party.

            “Good afternoon. I am Mr. Jayston and this is Mrs. Bellingham. We keep the house at Wisteria Bay, regardless of—” There was a slight pause in which a look of intense and long-standing dislike passed between Dr. Baker and Mr. Jayston. “— _which_ of the many Dr. Bakers is in residence.”

            “And who has the honour of being Mr. Bellingham?” Dr. Davison asked politely. Dr. Baker attempted to stifle a laugh.

            “It is expected for a housekeeper to be addressed as ‘missus’, regardless of her marital status.” she answered crisply.

            “You must forgive me. I meet rather few housekeepers.”

            “Of course, sir. Should you need anything while you’re staying here-” Mrs. Bellingham cast a stony glance down the line. “I’m sure you’ll find someone to ask.”

            Her words were directed at Dr. Davison, but all the while she was shooting Dr. Baker a cross look like a scolding nanny. It _was_ possible, Dr. Davison supposed, that she had been around for his youth. She didn’t look much older than either of the doctors herself, but she clearly had a long and not entirely warm acquaintance with him. Dr. Baker echoed the disdainful glances he had been receiving and moved past both Mr. Jayston and Mrs. Bellingham, nearly hitting them with his coattails.

            “Please make my guests feel as comfortable as possible.” said Dr. Baker. He chuckled mirthlessly and swept inside, trailing rainbows. “At least as comfortable as the family.”

            “Of course, sir.” the butler muttered icily. Dr. Baker strode angrily into the house, tugging at his cuffs in annoyance. The guests followed after him. Dr. Davison leaned towards Nyssa and muttered, “It’s so _odd_ to see people actually doing what he says.”

 

 

            The party moved inside the house, footfalls echoing in the large, mostly empty rooms. The foyer was grand but dimly lit, despite a chandelier hanging above the large curved staircase. The chandelier was unlit, and the sconces that lined the walls flickered dimly. There looked to be a door under the curve of the stair, which had flocked maroon wallpaper but little else that could be seen from the entrance.

            More doors to either side of the room led to other rooms that the guests didn’t have time to get a look into before the Bakers pressed forward. Adric lagged behind a bit, trying to get a look at some of the doors and what lay behind them. True, he had all summer to poke around the building, but that was hardly a reason not to get a jump on his siblings, so far as mapping out the place was concerned.

            To the left, he thought he saw a room with shelves in it. A library, probably, and in Adric’s personal opinion probably what would be the highlight of his trip. Whatever reputation Dr. Baker had, he was also a frequent lecturer at one of the best schools in London and coming from a long line of famously keen minds. The library was likely to be excellent. He moved towards it, trying to glance around the half-open door. Adric saw the corner of desk, a large book or ledger open, and curiouser still, the movement of someone standing up from the desk. If the whole staff was outside to greet them, who was that?

            “Adric, keep up!” Dr. Davison called. The boy jumped, looked back towards his family, then once more through the door. Whatever or whoever he had seen was gone. Unsure what he had seen, he gave the door one final glance before hurrying to meet the group. He hadn’t really been listening, but he was vaguely aware that Dr. Baker had been going off in the same cross manner since he entered the house, and the butler was suffering it with an expression like he would like the next house party to be hosted at Wisteria Bay to be Dr. Baker’s funeral.

            “I expect someone to go around and show the guests to their rooms.” instructed Dr. Baker. “I can show my wife to the master chamber.”

            “Ah, but Dr. Baker—” Was Mr. Jayston _sneering_? “We had prepared your old room for you. We had assumed that you would prefer it.”

            “You assumed that I would prefer to take up in a room I haven’t used since I was a lad?” Dr. Baker asked haughtily. “You _assumed_ there would be room enough for both me and my wife? I can only imagine how tight the quarters would be after moving in a double bed—for _I_ can only _assume_ you at least remembered that I married—and you considered this suitable for the only members of the family in residence? This is utter balderdash, we will take to the master bedroom.”

            “But sir, the master bedroom isn’t even opened. We didn’t think it appropriate, knowing that Dr. and Mrs. Baker, that is, your parents, wouldn’t be visiting this summer—”

            “Dr. and Mrs Baker _are_ in residence, Jayston.” Dr. Baker snarled, gesturing to first himself and then to Peri. “Here we are. Have the master bedroom opened before dinner is over, because it will be used whether you find it appropriate or not!”

            “That’s more what I expected.” Dr. Davison whispered to Nyssa. Mr. Jayston drew himself up and frowned heavily at Dr. Baker, who returned the glare with equal venom.

 

            “Have I made myself clear?” Dr. Baker asked hotly. “I want my guests settled before dinner, and I expect the staff to offer them every aid in that..”

            “It will be done, sir. Is there anything else? Or do you simply want me to stay here so you can have someone to rail at?”

“I assure you, Mr. Jayston, keeping you away from your duties is the _last_ thing I would want to do.” Dr. Baker replied sharply. “But there is of course the matter of my guests. See that Dr. Davison and his wards are shown to their rooms. My wife and I will inspect the gardens while waiting for the master bedroom to be opened. Have someone fetch us back in as soon as our room is presentable. A man named Masterson is going to be delivering their trunks sometime tomorrow, so do make a note of who took to which room.”

At this point, he paused raised a finger to keep the butler silent, and turned to Dr. Davison.

“It’s been a very tiring trip for all of us. We will reconvene at dinner. I saw that Mrs. Smythe had already arrived, so at least I can guarantee the quality of the food.” he added in fractionally warmer tones. He turned his attention and full distain back on Jayston like a fire hose.

            “You can manage that, can’t you, Jayston?” Dr. Baker concluded, his voice dripping with condescension.

            Jayston made a game attempt at looking even more like he wanted to vomit on Dr. Baker, then stab him, before hissing, “Very good, sir.” and disappearing into one of the many shadows in the foyer. Dr. Baker glared at the shadows for a moment more, then turned his attention to his guests. He was still clearly furious and he probably thought he was doing a decent job of hiding the fact.

            Dr. Baker irately adjusted his coat, turning away from the shadow Jayston had disappeared into. The remainder of the party collected their attention from the fascinating motes of air they had been examining while the man and butler argued. Now that they were properly looking at him, it stuck them how he stood out against the building, a livid clash of colours cut into the dark sculpture of the foyer. Tegan’s eyes flashed between him and his wife, trying to make Perpugilliam a second focal point in the dusty gray house. It wasn’t very effective, not at all helped by the fact that in relation to the rest of the house Peri looked remarkably young, uncomfortable and out of place.

            “Well, Dr. Davison. Miss Jovanka, miss Nyssa, master Turlough and _dear_ little Adric…” Dr. Baker spread his arms slightly, gesturing at the dark, gloomy opulence around him with a grin that reminded the children of the rumours surrounding their host; that the Bakers were a family of madmen, and that the second son was the most insane and the dangerous of that generation.

            “Welcome to the house at Wisteria Bay.”

 

❦ ❦ ❦

            “And of course _that_ wasn’t unnecessarily dramatic.”

            “I’m sure you would know best, my dear.”

Mrs. Baker glared up at her husband, who, knowing perfectly well he had something to earn him a glare, was intensely focused on inspecting a quince bush. The couple moved through the garden with their arms linked. It skirted the edge of propriety, coming around the better side by virtue of the two being married, owning the property, and being quite alone.

            “Could you at least think of the kids?” Peri asked. “They were walking on broken glass the moment they saw the house, then you had to play the whole ‘master of the haunted manor’ routine…”

            “And how, pray tell, am I to comport myself around the children?” Dr. Baker asked. He might have intended to sound cross, but mostly he sounded helpless.

            “I don’t know,” Peri said innocently, “Maybe you could have tried to sound a little less like you were foretelling their deaths? Just a thought.”

            Dr. Baker rolled his eyes at her and poked at one of the patches of flowers.

            “The bleeding hearts are a bit late this year, don’t you think?” he asked. Peri nodded.

            “And they’re a lot darker here then I’ve seen anywhere else.” she agreed. “Nearly blood-red.”

            “They ought to be, considering how they got that colour.” he replied. Peri turned to him for an explanation.

            “It’s the iron content of the soil, I shouldn’t think. Rust, blood, and those flowers, all red with iron.”

“But blood-red?” she asked.

            “It makes perfect sense to me.” he replied calmly. “How do you think the soil got such a high iron content? It’s blood. Blood for the roses, blood for the bleeding hearts.”

            “Blood?” she repeated. “As in real blood? Not as in human-“

            “Good gracious, no!” Dr. Baker exclaimed. “Rabbit mostly, sometimes a bit of deer. The gamekeeper drains his catch out here, in the night. The blood is terribly good for the roses, it makes them grow faster and larger. It also appears make the bleeding hearts bloom darker.”

There was the slightest pause, then Peri burst out laughing, half stressed and half amused.

            “You see? You say things like that with a straight face and then wonder why a bunch of teenagers looks fearful for their lives!” she laughed. “Creaky old stairs and a vampire rose-bush! You’ve got to admit this place is a little creepy.”

            “I will admit nothing of the sort. This house is not _‘a little creepy’_ as you put it,” he retorted, putting on a nasal attempt at an American accent while quoting Peri. “This house is the stuff of nightmares, or at very least of penny-dreadfuls. You would half expect some vampire to or werewolf to come howling down the stairs in the middle of the night. Lacking either of those, I shouldn’t wonder they have cast me as their mad host who will surely murder the lot of them in their sleep.”

            “Well vampires aren’t real, so of course they had to go with you.”

            “My dear woman, whoever told you that vampires aren’t real?”

            “Oh, no.” Peri smiled uneasily. “No, you aren’t going to scare me like that.”

            “ _O brave new world, that has such creatures in ’t!_ We live in a world full of clockwork staircases and steam-powered hounds! The laws of aerodynamics seem more to be suggestions than rules with each passing day! I would feel a fool to discount the possibility that vampires exist, merely that none are _here.”_

He grinned, took his wife’s arm, and added, “And that is more of a theory than a fact, I haven’t had a full check of the house yet.” The Bakers laughed, squeezed one another’s hands and resumed their walk.

 

“Oh, but this large party does rather makes me miss my solivagant days.” Dr. Baker murmured. “Taking up on wild adventures with no destination, no companionship—”

            “Except for me.” Peri added with a forced brightness. Her husband smiled cynically at her, and she returned the expression with equal ease.

            “—no companionship to speak of, wandering the world, finding answers rather than asking questions and letting other, younger souls go out and risk their lives to find the answer. And if I should meet a fellow like Jayston, why I could tell him what I thought of him and pass onto another town without giving him a second thought.”

            “Oh, don’t start on him again.” Peri rolled her eyes. “You’ll want to have enough to complain about for the rest of the summer.”

            “My dear lady, if I am to express my full distain for Mr. Jayston and I only have this summer to do it, I had best start now. I am reminded why I prefer living in the townhouse.” Dr. Baker grumbled. “That man always looks quite prepared to murder me in my sleep.”

            “He just has a grouchy face.” his wife argued.

            “Grouchy?” Dr. Baker asked. “Grouchy? _Grouchy?!_ If looks could kill, none of us would make it out of this house alive!”

 

            Incensed by the subject of Mr. Jayston, he began trudging up the garden path again, and by virtue of still having arms linked with him Peri followed.

            “He’s hated me, he always has.” Dr. Baker railed. “Ever since the day my parents first employed him, he’s had nothing but pure disdain for me. I think he may be the only man in England who prefers me to my brother not out of blind hero-worship for Tom but utter disdain for me!”

            “At least his opinion of you is based on your own merit.” she offered, more brightly than was necessary. “Anyway, he’s not the only person who hates you for you. What about Mr. Grade?”

            “Oh, he doesn’t count as a human!” Dr. Baker scoffed. “But for the remainder of the summer, all I have to worry about is Mr. Jayston poisoning my food and Dr. Davison taking up arms in protection of his children.”

            “You know neither of them are going to do that.” she retorted with a roll of her eyes. He huffed and folded his arms.

            “Yes, but they’re quite likely to think about it, and what’s more, _enjoy the thought_ while it lasts.” he frowned. He was most definitely wearing a frown, as he was a full-grown man, and full-grown men did not pout. Peri shook her head and smiled at her husband, who was most definitely _not_ pouting like a six-year-old. She lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and laid his own hand over hers, enveloping it.

            “Dear, when have you _ever_ cared about what people think of you?” Peri asked.

            “I don’t. I especially don’t care what _that_ man thinks of me. It doesn’t mean I’m not aware of it.”

            “Can we at least try and enjoy the summer?” she asked. “It _is_ a very nice house, even if it’s not as… freshly painted as the townhouse. There’s a wonderful view of the bay out of the green study.”

            “And I’ll admit that there are certain volumes in the library I haven’t visited in some time…” he murmured.

“And it will do the house some good to have more people in it. I mean, last time I was here we never even opened the ballroom. I mean, yes, no one local wanted to visit us, but with the Davisons here we could have a nice little party, like Nyssa was talking about.”

“That’s quite true. And I’m sure Dr. Davison will take to the grounds, even if no one else will. Any dry day, should we actually have one this summer, would be ideal for a bit of sport.”

“There’s plenty of explore inside as well, I don’t think I saw even half of this house last time we were here. The others will like that.”

            “Not to mention the garden, what with the roses and the wisteria and the-“

            “Tilly!” Peri cried out.

            “And the Tilly-” Dr. Baker continued. He paused in the slightest confusion as his wife let go of his arm and dashed down the path to greet her ladies’ maid. She was a slight, rosy-cheeked girl just about Peri’s age who endeavoured to be a bosom friend to Peri and a constant source of speculation into other people’s personal lives, which while rarely accurate could be shockingly entertaining. She had succeeded on the first part. The two clasped hands fondly.

            “I can’t believe you’re already here! When Masterson picked us up at the station, he said he would send his boy up with the trunks. I thought that you were travelling with them, so I didn’t expect you until tomorrow morning.”

            “I don’t know anything about that, Pe- Mrs. Baker.”

            “Oh, call me Peri, anything else sounds so odd coming from you!”

            “But Mrs.-“

            “I agree, call her Peri.” Dr. Baker agreed from several yards behind them. Tilly smiled as if she were getting away with something and squeezed Peri’s hands.

            “Very well, Peri. I came up with Mrs. Smythe on the early morning train. I wanted to have the wardrobe in order when you arrived, but Mr. Jayston refused to let me into the master bedroom. The man is an absolute beast!”

            “He _is_ that.” Peri agreed. If frowns could be heard, Dr. Baker’s would have been a foghorn blasting across all of the estate’s grounds. Peri ignored this and smiled conspiratorially at Tilly.

            “I’m so glad you’re here, Tilly. I have a favour to ask of you…”

 

❦ ❦ ❦

 

            Portraits of curly-haired imposing figures that Nyssa could only assume from their clothing where long-dead Bakers glared down at her from nearly every wall. She wondered how it was she had gotten used to the lower ceilings and smaller rooms of Dr. Davison’s apartments so quickly. This place, with its tall walls and winding hallways ought to have reminded Nyssa of home, of her father’s palace, which now was a pile of rubble and so many turnip stands. But with the gothic and vaulted ceilings, Wisteria Bay reminded Nyssa more of a cathedral than anything else. A cathedral that hadn’t been used in quite some time. But the appearance of the house was nothing to its air.

            The atmosphere in the house was the equivalent of a sustained chord on the bottom range of a pipe organ. There was something pervasive about the shadows on the walls, like the house had been in the dark for so long that it was stained that dreary dark gray. The gaslights seemed weaker than they did at the Academy and left the interior in a state of perpetual twilight, which was probably a function of the experimental system installed by Dr. Baker, but it felt as if the building had forgotten how to have light in it.

            Nyssa didn’t understand why no one else in her adoptive family was susceptible to atmospheres, and never got the feeling that generations of dead emotions were lying strewn around old houses with all the other antiques. It couldn’t simply be a case of “they’re English, and they care for admitting to having the most obvious emotions, much less feelings of anything that could be interpreted as supernatural”. For one thing, that only covered Dr. Davison. Admittedly, she hadn’t asked Turlough about his feelings on the supernatural yet, for that matter where he had lived before he came to England. He didn’t seem very interested in talking to her, and no one had ever seemed very interested in talking to her about the supernatural, so she didn’t have much hope.

 

            Nyssa had been trying to find a way to express what she was feeling other than “I sense a great evil in this place.” largely because she imagined that it would take less than a week for even herself to be very tired of hearing her saying that. More to the point, she wasn’t entirely sure if “evil” was the word she would have used if she had to describe what she was sensing. It was more… nuanced than that. It was like layer after layer after layer of emotions painted over each other like a glaze, a dozen shades coming out to a thick, uncomfortable gray. Sadness on anger on lies on insanity on secrets on sadness on secrets on sadness on-

            Something behind Nyssa grasped her hand firmly, and she screamed.

            “Nyssa!” Adric exclaimed. She clapped her free hand to her chest and squeezed the hand that took hers like she was going to wrench it off.

            “Adric you—you rotter, you did that on purpose!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you at least wait until it’s dark before you try to scare me?”

            “I’m not trying to scare you.” he pouted. “I actually hoped you wouldn’t be scared, but I didn’t think there was a danger of that until you heard what I had to say. I saw someone in the library!”

            “In the library? When was that, we haven’t been here long. Have you even found your room yet?” she asked. Adric rolled his eyes.

            “Turlough wanted first pick. He’s checking _all_ the rooms, whether or not they’re open!” Adric explained with unhidden disgust. “Going right in, pulling sheets off furniture and things. Doesn’t explain a thing he’s doing, keeps saying I wouldn’t understand. I’m only two years younger than him, and what’s more I get better marks!”

            He huffed indignantly, and Nyssa smiled at him. He could get so riled up about the stupidest little things, but there was something so blissfully _normal_ about listening to Adric complain which was a positive balm after frightening herself. She wasn’t sure if he noticed this effect on her, but he calmed down slightly before he continued.

“I don’t regret it, though, if he gets first pick of the room then I can choose whichever one’s furthest away from where he’s staying. I won’t hear his bloody muttering in his sleep, which he insists he doesn’t do as if he’d even know…”

            Nyssa laughed slightly and shook her head.

            “…which is when I came to find you and tell you about what I saw in the library.” Adric concluded.

            “You’ve found the library already?” Nyssa asked, clearly intrigued. “It must be marvellous, the Bakers have been teaching at Transcendental Academy since it was founded.”

            “That’s what I thought, but when I looked in there was someone inside it. And this was just as we were coming in, when all of the maids and things were lined up outside like toy soldiers. I checked back when Turlough chased me off, but whoever was in there had already left.”

            Nyssa looked concerned, and she had certainly started squeezing his hand tightly.

            “Nys, are you alright?” Adric asked.

            “It’s… it’s nothing, it’s just a feeling.”

            “A feeling?” Adric wrinkled his nose as if he never heard the word before. “What sort of feeling?”

            “It’s… well, it’s that the staff _were_ all presenting themselves, but they all seemed very unhappy about something. Everyone who is in this house should have been out on the drive, what with the rest of the family abroad. And this place…” Nyssa paused, she was _not_ going to say she “sensed great evil in this place”, and especially not to Adric. “I don’t like it here. It makes me wonder... wonder what’s happened here that all the staff are so upset about. Wonder why that local fellow looked so unsettled by the place. Wonder what it was you saw.”

            “What, like it could have been a ghost?” he suggested, grinning.

            “Don’t say that like I’m being absurd.” Nyssa frowned.

            “Well, of course, it couldn’t have been a ghost!” Adric laughed.

            “Why do you say that?”

            “Well, because they aren’t real. Everyone rational knows ghosts can’t exist.”

            “That’s not much of an explanation.” Nyssa frowned. “You could just as easily say ‘everyone rational knows ghosts _do_ exist’ if you’re going to be defining rationality as accepting a particular worldview. I can’t come down on either side of the matter myself, but I do find it hard to believe that humans don’t affect the world around us in ways we don’t yet understand… perhaps even after we die. And I certainly don’t think that I know much about it myself.”

            She said all of this very quickly and tersely, clearly growing more uncomfortable as she spoke.

            “Oh, you just had to bring up ghosts, didn’t you?” Nyssa finished quickly, pulling away. Adric considered how this conversation had even gotten to that point, but by this time, Tegan had found them.

            “Adric, what did you do?” she demanded.

            “Do?” Adric demanded right back. “Why do you think I did anything?”

            “Don’t you always?” she asked. “I heard Nyssa scream.”

            “He just surprised me, that’s all.” Nyssa explained. “I’m a little uneasy, but I’ll probably feel better after dinner. It’s been a long time since lunch on the train, and that was very light in any case.”

            Both Adric and Tegan looked at each other as if they weren’t quite sure what was going on, but it was probably the other’s fault. Nyssa supposed that meant it was time for her to be the oil on the water again, soothing tempers before it became a proper fight. Everyone else was going to have a holiday, but it appeared that she was going to have to be working overtime in that regard. Well, perhaps they might retire to opposite ends of this absurdly large house and leave her a few hours to herself to catch up on her reading, which was more than she would have gotten at home.

 

            “Adric.” Nyssa said soothingly, putting both of her hands over his. “I really should find my room. But I _would_ like to have a look at the library with you. Perhaps after dinner?”

            “Of course.” he said quickly. He smiled, which Tegan thought looked very odd, squeezed Nyssa’s hands, looked at her, then at Tegan, and squeezed her hands once more before breaking off.

            “I…. I had best find my room, too.” Adric murmured. “I’ll see you at dinner.” With that, the boy dashed down the hallway.

            “Adric, don’t run, you’ll-” Nyssa warned. Adric, hearing Nyssa address him, turned his head but kept dashing forward, resulting in his foot catching on the hall runner and him sprawling awkwardly on the floor.

            “-trip.” Nyssa finished with a wince.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] the number of cats owned by the Baker family is based off of the number of years Colin Baker went before regenerating. Peri is counting from Time and the Rani, Colin from The Twin Dilemma.
> 
> In this AU, the Valeyard and Inquisitor Darkel are the butler and housekeeper at Wisteria Bay. This choice was largely made because they were antagonistic to the sixth Doctor, and because they can effectively look very creepy.  
> The rest of the Baker family, who will not be appearing in this story, are the elder brother Tom, who is this AU’s fourth doctor, and the elderly parents Pip and Jan. Tom appears in other Society of Academics stories, this is in fact the first one he doesn’t have at least a cameo in. 
> 
> As a personal joke, Wisteria Bay is based off of the house in Plant Life, but it’s very hard to tell that in a text-based story without saying it outright.


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tegan and Nyssa explore Wisteria Bay and discover a mysterious room.

III.

 

            Tegan _had_ packed quite well, in fact she packed all of the clothes she owned, but those were in her trunk with Masterson, wherever he was. She prided herself on having a wardrobe which would have been extensive had it belonged to a woman as rich as Mrs. Brown, but for a working woman was positively spendthrift: a white summer dress, her Sunday best, and three calico day dresses, as well as her conductorette uniform. As it was, she found herself once again stranded in her air conductorette uniform, lilac and quite smart if certainly too short for dinner.

            The fact of the matter was that most of the school knew that Dr. Davison had two female wards and any outgrown dress would end up being sent in his direction. Fortunately, Tegan was a dab hand at fixing up old dresses so they were presentable and suitably modern. Although she suspected that soon the three calico dresses would need to be taken apart and worked into two or one new dresses, she was not looking forward to the experience. While all the prints were combinations of black, white, and primary colours, she was suitably concerned the effect would be something entirely too reminiscent of Dr. Baker.

            Nyssa was in an even worse state, wearing the velvet dress she wore to lessons (also far too short to be suitable for dinner, not even covering her boots) and her missing luggage only containing her sporting outfit, the half-mourning dress she bought after her father’s death, a gray and yellow working dress, and a striped lawn dress that would doubtless be perfect for a summer holiday which was anywhere but an ominous old house. They had a carpetbag each, but neither of those contained anything useful, they were hardly going to come to dinner in their nightgowns. But that seemed to be a problem to address once they had decided where to address it.

            “…so…” Tegan mused, opening a curtain. “Do you want this room, or can I take it?”

            “You can have it if you like it, Tegan.” Nyssa replied, sounding distracted.

            “Oh, come on, Nyssa. We’ll be here for nearly three months, and we clearly have the variety to be as choosy as we like.”

The two girls moved around the room, which was decorated in a more Georgian style than the rest of the house, or at least parts of the house that they had seen thus far. Several bedrooms had been opened in what Dr. Baker described as “the guest hallway”, and each of them was larger and far better appointed than the room they shared at home, even if they were tremendously old-fashioned. It was starting to make Tegan slightly uncomfortable, it really shouldn’t have changed her opinion of Dr. Baker. It didn’t _improve_ her opinion of Dr. Baker, but it did change it. The only part of the room that was as she expected from her previous experiences with Dr. Baker was fat gray cat. It was sleeping in the middle of a hassock by the window, and it took absolutely no notice of the guests whatever. Tegan took a similar view of the cat, because weighing on her mind was the matter of what Masterson had told her, which she hadn’t yet been able to impart to Nyssa. And, of course, a smaller matter which was a bit closer to hand.

            “I don’t know why you encourage him.” said Tegan.

            “Who?”

            “Who do you think?” she laughed. “ ‘I’ll join you in the library after dinner’. He was bad enough on the train with all of us there.”

            “Well, I know you can’t be talking about Adric.” Nyssa replied, “All he did on the train was eat.”

            “Eat and insist to be seated next to you.”

            “He wanted the window seat.”

            “Bad enough to risk Turlough vomiting on him?” Tegan asked. Nyssa opened her mouth but couldn’t think of anything that could be said to that. She frowned slightly and turned her attention back to inspecting the room. It was mainly decorated in dark violet and black, with rather tall and imposing furniture that made her feel like she was a child. Which, she supposed was legally true, but one most decidedly didn’t not feel like a child at sixteen. Her majority was so very close she didn’t wasn’t sure whether it would be better to grasp at it or run in the other direction.

 

            A portrait of a woman in a white dress with flowers in her lap stared out from a portrait through a mess of dark curls. She had Dr. Baker’s eyes. Not Colin’s, but Tom’s, it was very disconcerting the way the portrait was boggling at the viewer. But the way that her dark brown curls were pinned up around her head reminded Nyssa of family portraits at her old home. It had been some time since she had seen any of them, recognised her own nose or her father’s chin in a face a hundred years old. It was unlikely she would ever so do again, she supposed that they had all been burned in the war. Perhaps, when it was safe to return, she would try to track down any pieces of art that were spared the vandal’s wrath. Nyssa wistfully touched the flocked violet wallpaper and ran her fingers along its velvety surface. Her fingers brushed over the seam in the wallpaper, and the wall gave slightly. She pulled her hand back in surprise.

            “What’s this?” Nyssa mused, running her hand over the wall again.

            “What’s what?”

            “There’s a seam in the wall, it goes all through to the plaster.” said Nyssa, running her finger along it.

            “Sounds as if you’ve already got what it is figured out, then.” said Tegan, looking sideways at her sister. It was very easy for Tegan to think of Nyssa as her sister, the two opened up about their situations and how they led them to being under Dr. Davison’s care to each other before anyone else. Nyssa being her sister was quite the easiest part of her new life for Tegan to accept.

           And Adric, oh, it didn’t take many weeks for the “bother” to develop a second “r” with the way he produced the sort of frustration where you didn’t actually want to see any harm come to them, you just wanted to threaten it as loudly and absurdly as possible. Turlough she hadn’t figured out yet. He hadn’t been with them as long, and… it wasn’t that he didn’t speak to her, so much as when he did speak he said _nothing_. He said nothing, and he took entirely too many words to do it. Tegan pulled herself out of this reverie as Nyssa frowned at the wall.

            “I know it’s a seam… but I don’t know if it’s…” Nyssa mused, flatting her hands against the wall. She pushed gently, letting the panel give by fractions and trying not to force it. She wouldn’t get anywhere that way, at least not to Tegan’s way of thinking, so Tegan pushed on the wall as well, significantly harder. The tiny crackles of old paper gave way to the creak of an unoiled hinge and a section of wall as high as Nyssa’s eyes and as wide as both of their petticoats together swung into what Nyssa could only describe as what would happen if you could make a hole out of dust and shadows. The girls coughed, and Nyssa quickly produced a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress. Holding it over her mouth, she ducked and entered the hidden room.

            From Tegan’s perspective, Nyssa disappeared into the blackness. From Nyssa’s, she was suddenly enveloped in what felt like a very full and very tight room. There was air around her, like an empty closet, but there was definitively something in here. She waved above her head to see if it was safe to raise it, and was at once quite disappointed and quite glad she had done so. On the one hand, she was disappointed that her hand was thoroughly covered with sticky, powdery cobwebs. On the other, she was glad her head wasn’t. Nyssa let out a quiet whine of disgust.

            “Are you alright?” Tegan asked.

            “I’m quite sure I’m safe, but I rather wish I wasn’t wearing velvet at this precise moment.” Nyssa muttered. She gave up on the state of her dress and gently prodded the darkness around her inquisitively. She recoiled gently, because her first thought was that she had touched an animal, but then she realised how cold it was. Yes, it was hairy, but there was no warmth. It occurred to her that it could be because it was dead, but that wasn’t a comforting thought. 

           Nyssa moved her hands gently through the darkness, trying to make out shapes rather than textures. It was the textures that caught her, though. There were so many of them, the smoothness of china, soft fabrics, holes like lace, and old papers—so old Nyssa was afraid to touch them least they come away under her fingers.

 

            “Bring a lamp from the room, I think there’s something in here.” Nyssa suggested, tentatively moving into the dark little chamber. It felt tight and crowded, and she had the most bizarre sensation of being watched. Behind her, Tegan dug in the bedside cabinet for a match, hurriedly lighting the ornate little oil lamp that rested there. She brought it to the hidden door, urging Nyssa further into the dark little room. Tegan’s body blocked what little light was cast from the purple room, so all that could be seen was the sharp shadows and edges of a hundred little objects cluttering the walls. Old papers were held up with drawing pins, but most of what had ever been on them had faded and couldn’t be made out from what little light they had.

           The hair Nyssa touched seemed to be an old doll. She was beautifully moulded china, but her dress had been made clumsily by someone who obviously had done very little sewing before this, largely held in place by a long strip of old lace crossed over her chest like a fichu.

            “She’s old…” Nyssa mused softly. At first Tegan wasn’t sure whom she was talking about. She faced where Nyssa was looking. “Older than either of us, but always a child…” Nyssa shook her head.

            “I’m sorry, what strange thing to say….”

            “It’s a stranger thing to look at.” Tegan replied. She moved the light over the forest of random things. There was a toy catapult with a leather band, a single bell on a hook, moth eaten paintbrushes, three different stuffed foxes, two toys, one taxidermied. The skull of a songbird was suspended by two nails through its eye sockets, and below it a small jar had been filled with assorted small bones, possibly from the same bird. A row of empty bottles in various sizes and shapes, propping up a book whose cover had fallen off even before it was put there. There was a jar full of feathers from wild birds and what looked for all the world like a miniature cairn of interesting rocks. Another jar held the bones of mouse, curled up in a way that looked distressingly like it had been trapped there while it was still alive and allowed to starve to death and moulder into bones. It was more like a tableau of hidden objects than anything else, Tegan half expected at any moment to find a little limerick of clues to search for. But each item was such a small, easily found or replaced thing that it was strange to see them hoarded so. Unless, of course one was a child, in which case this would be a treasure trove of unspeakable wonder.

           But Tegan found herself hoping that this was not the collection of any child, because in a place of honour, balanced carefully between three screws in the plaster was a large and wickedly pointed carving knife, its metal spotted with age. The handle was made of either bone or ivory, worn to a gleam far brighter than the blade. There was the faintest hint of carving on the handle, but if it had shown any pattern it had been worn away by use. Even as well-worn as the knife was, it was covered in as much dust as the rest of the room and clearly hadn’t been touched in quite some time.

            “I don’t think anyone knows about this room but the spiders.” Nyssa mused quietly.

            “I don’t envy the spiders that, the rest of the house is a veritable safe haven compared to this place. Let’s get out of here.” Tegan suggested. She moved the lamp slightly, looking past Nyssa’s shoulder. “That’s a door knob. The other side of this place opens up, too.”

The girls clamoured out quickly. The room beyond wasn’t dissimilar from the one on the opposite side of the passage, just as clean and sumptuous. It was decked all in maroon and brown, with walnut trim on the walls and a magnificent canopy bed near the window. An equally handsome wardrobe towered against the opposite wall, wing-like carving at the top casting shadows on the flocked maroon wallpaper.

This room had two paintings, another long-dead Baker and a view very much like the bay outside the house. Tegan half-suspected that it _was_ the view outside the house, it had that roughness of technique that she suspected meant it was painted by a family member. One would be less keen to keep a painting as dreary as that one had it been painted by a stranger.

            “It’s been cleaned.” said Nyssa, delicately stepping into the room. She wasn’t sure how much dust she was tracking in from the passage but it definitely smelt fresher in here than the secret… well it was less than a hall and more than a closet.

            “So the staff definitely know about this room, even if they don’t know it has two doors.”

            “I think this is another one of the rooms that was opened for the guests.”

            “I think you’re right…” said Tegan. “I also think one of us should take this room, and the other the one we just left.”

            “Yes.” Nyssa agreed. She flashed a smile over her shoulder. “There is something a bit exciting about it, a secret passage in a mysterious old house, having your closest friend on the other side.”

            “There is.” Tegan half-smiled. “And I don’t fancy either of the boys taking a room on the other side of that door.” She gently moved the door along its hinges and let out a long, sustained creak.

            “Do you suppose that Dr. Baker knows about that passage?” Nyssa mused. “He did grow up in this house, after all.”

            “I doubt it.” Tegan shook her head. “I don’t think that passage had been opened for _ages_.” She bent down slightly and examined the door.

            “Well, he’s not a _young_ man…”

            “No, but he isn’t eighty years old!” Tegan retorted.

            “Eighty years old?” Nyssa asked.

            “There’s a carving here, look.” the older girl knelt by the door and ran her finger along the surface.

_JTB SSH 1803_

            The carver had clearly intended for the letters to resemble bold gothic capitals, but had some trouble with the delicate work. It looked like someone had tried to recreate the carving on a tombstone with a sword. They had also taken the time to create what was either intended to be wings, a heart shape, or possibly both, around the letters.

            “Childhood sweethearts, do you think?” Nyssa suggested. “I can’t imagine someone any taller than… well, taller than me spending any time in that passage.”

            “Sweethearts who collect dead animals?”

            “These _are_ Dr. Baker’s ancestors.”

            “Yes…” Tegan agreed. “I _have_ heard about their history…”

            “From who? …more to the point, you’ve heard what?”

            “Just… warnings. The man who brought us here…” Tegan said uneasily. “He said… well, he led me to believe this house wasn’t safe, especially with Dr. Baker here. He said that he was mad.”

            “Oh, everyone says that Dr. Baker is mad.” Nyssa shook her head. “It’s just his way. People would say the same thing about Dr. Davison, if the Bakers weren’t making him look saner by comparison. Everyone says Dr. Baker is the last in a line of madmen and eccentrics.”

            “Yes, but not everyone is frightened of him.” Tegan replied. “Masterson seemed genuinely concerned for us. Said we ought to lock our doors at night…” she trailed off uneasily. Nyssa looked at her with a terribly serious expression.

            “And did you believe him?” she asked. Tegan fiddled with one of her nails.

            “….I… I didn’t _disbelieve_ him, and… well, I guess it’s just easy to be suspicious of anyone who owns a giant house with secret passages!” Both of the young woman laughed, if a bit uneasily. Still, they peered at the distant square of dim gray light at the other end with distinct apprehension.

            “Do you suppose he knows about this passage?” asked Nyssa.

            “I don’t see how he would, he’s just a cab pilot—oh, you mean Dr. Baker?” Tegan shook her head. “No, I don’t think he does either. Just look at it, the dust is thick as a duvet in there! And that engraving is from eighty years ago. I wouldn’t be confident in saying itself been opened since.”

            “Exactly. We can hardly condemn the man for this if he doesn’t even know its here.” Nyssa said evenly. Even as she spoke, it became easier for her to believe.

            “Still, whether it was Dr. Baker or one of his ancestors, I wouldn’t present that collection as a case for sanity.” said Tegan. “And they do say it runs in families…”

            “Good gracious, Tegan, you make it sound as if you expect the man to kill us all in our sleep!” Nyssa replied. She had attempted to laugh as she said this, but couldn’t quite manage it. She and Tegan looked uncomfortably at one another.

            There was a very loud noise by their feet, and the girls jumped. The noise turned out to be a meow, or more specifically, a “miiaa-aawl!” from the gray cat, who had apparently followed them through the dark. There was a great deal of clutching chests, laughing, and feeling rather foolish all around, except from the cat, who set himself to covering the girl’s ankles with gray hair as well as dust.

 

            Tegan nipped back into the dark little passage.

            “What are you doing?” Nyssa asked. “You don’t intend to leave me in here?”

            “I won’t.” Tegan’s voice assured her from the black hole in the wall. “I’m just closing the other side of the passageway. If it’s been secret this long, I don’t fancy unearthing some dark family secret on our first day here.” She emerged, dusting off her hands and looking pleased with herself.

            “Besides, this isn’t the only cat I’ve seen about. I wouldn’t want one of them to get walled up by accident.” Nyssa nodded and closed the passage. The two girls looked critically at the result.

            “You can see the door was forced open from the other side.” said Tegan, examining both sides of the secret door. “The wallpaper didn’t tear, but there’s a scuff where the door hit the wall.”

            “Maybe if we shifted that dresser just a bit?” Nyssa suggested, “Not enough to block it closed, just enough to cover the mark?” Tegan nodded and moved to the other side of the dresser and attempted to shift it. With their combined effort and a loud scraping noise along the floorboards, they hefted the dresser along the wall. Nyssa straightened her back and checked the wall again. She sighed heavily.

            “It’s no good, Tegan. There’s only more over here. Someone else must have had the same idea we did.”

            “Oh no.” Tegan grumbled, straightening up. “What do you want to bet that Dr. Baker’s going to blame us for the scrapes when he finds out?”

            “Tegan.” Nyssa said suddenly, touching the wall. “I don’t think these are scrapes. At least not any caused by the dresser.” Tegan came around the dresser and gasped outright. Large, thin marks were carved into the flocked wallpaper and the plaster under it, leaving deep gashes in the wall. Most of these were in a single direction, probably the result of some furniture being shoved against the wall, but the deepest were random, crossing each other every which way like scars. What was more, the paper was darker behind the dresser. Tegan’s first thought was that it was a stain or water damage, but she quickly put it out of her mind. It must have been fading from the sunlight, it was too square to be a stain. The sun simply _must_ hit that wall at some point in the day, she assured herself.

            “They’re clean slashes, made by something sharp. I think they’re about the size…” Nyssa murmured uneasily, her fingers hovering above the damage.

            “About the size of the knife in the passage.” Tegan finished.

            Nyssa carefully edged the passage open again, checking the marks on the wall against the door. The larger scraps couldn’t possibly have been made by the door, it simply didn’t reach far enough for that. There had been some sort of struggle here, but it might have been a hundred years before for all they could tell. Tegan and Nyssa looked uneasily at each other. There were only so many unsettling discoveries one could make in an hour without chasing down the house’s owner and demanding an explanation, an escape, or both; and they had just about hit maximum.

 

            There was a knock outside the room, and both girls jumped. Tegan rapidly waved her hands at Nyssa and the door, which was looking less secret by the minute. Nyssa shut it immediately and put her back to it for good measure. She nodded at Tegan, who turned to whoever was in the hallway.

            “Ah… come in.”

 

            The door opened, and a young woman entered. She was a small woman dressed in the black and white uniform of the staff, and though she appeared quite cheery now, Nyssa recognised her as the maid who looked on the verge of tears when they arrived. She bobbed down in the briefest curtsy as she introduced herself.

            “Good afternoon, miss. Miss.” the woman’s voice sounded distinctly like a bird warbling, in that way that could just as easily be laughter or crying. “My name is Tilly and I’ve been sent to look for you.”

            “Look for us?” Tegan asked, “Have we gone missing?”

            “Not at all, miss. My mistress just wants to see that you’re properly looked after. I’m to see you’re settled properly, found rooms and changed before supper.” Tilly looked from Nyssa, to Tegan, to the dresser, then back to Tegan. “Are either of your thinking about taking this room? Is a very nice room, most lovely view over the moors from that window-seat there. And it’s one those what’s been turned down for the guests, fresh and cozy, I should think.”

            “I was thinking that I would take this room, if that’s alright.” said Nyssa, looking at Tegan carefully. “And Tegan was rather taken with the next door over-“

            “Oh, yes, the purple room. Very fine. Sumptuous, that’s the word!” Tilly chirped excitedly, clapping her hands together. “One of the last rooms to hold a member of the family before this wing was converted to guest rooms.”

            “On second thought…” Tegan added to Nyssa, sotto voce.

            “And of course, I’m to see to it that you’re dressed for supper. Mrs. Baker was quite clear I see to you before I see to her. She was most insistent on that count.”

            “Dressed-?” Tegan began, but the maid didn’t seem to hear.

            “But my goodness, look at you!” Tilly gasped, touching her mouth. The two looked at each other. The secret passage had covered both of them with dust. Tegan glanced back, afraid it might have trailed across the carpet or where ever that cat had gotten to.

            “That’s the trains for you, they get all sorts of dust all over you! It can’t be hygienic at all!” the maid fussed, fetching a clothes-brush from the vanity. “It’s just as well that you’re to change for dinner, you’ll get ill if you stay in those clothes. Not to mention it isn’t presentable.” She immediately started brushing down both of the girls, switching from one shoulder to another like they were the same person. It reminded Tegan rather of a mother cat grooming her kittens.

            “About that—changing, I mean...” Nyssa began, accepting Tilly’s attentions politely. Tegan didn’t take to being fussed over at all, and was feeling more like an old ornament than a person by the time she’d pushed the brush off of her arm enough times for Tilly to get the point.

            “We haven’t got anything to change into.” said Tegan sharply. “Our trunks aren’t coming up until tomorrow, and even if we had anything besides our nightgowns to change into, I’m not sure if it would be what you had in mind. We weren’t exactly warned about needing anything formal. When Dr. Baker said he had a home in the country, I think we all pictured something a quarter this size.”

            _That_ finally got Tilly to pause. She brought the brush to her chest and touched her lips thoughtfully.

            “That’s most irregular, I should have thought that Mrs. Baker was perfectly bubbling with ideas about your visit. I would have thought she would have shared some of them with you, or at very least with your guardian before he agreed to join us.”

            “It’s likely she did.” Tegan passed a dark glance towards Nyssa. “It strikes me that if Dr. Davison were promised a trip to the sea and a look at an impressive library, he would completely forget everyone else he was told to prepare for.”

            “If that’s so, I think I know what’s in that enormous trunk he packed.” Nyssa replied. “Top to bottom crammed with cricket gear, if I know him at all. Dr. Davison could have forgotten to mention all number of things in that excitement.”

            “And…” Tilly looked over her shoulder uneasily, “...and well, it’s not for me to say, but every time Dr. Baker comes home there’s a bit of a silent war between him and Jayston; and I’m quite keen to let Dr. Baker know that I’m on his side. Well, on his wife’s side. But definitely _not_ on Mr. Jayston’s, and if Mr. Jayston wants Dr. Baker to look a fool, it would be best for everyone if I did my best to prevent that. And if you don’t mind me saying so, I’d advise both of you to do the same.”

            “Everyone’s full of advice today.” Tegan rolled her eyes at Nyssa.

            “You’ll still need gowns for supper…” Tilly insisted. “I know, we can look in Mrs. Baker’s things!”

            “That’s very kind.” said Nyssa delicately, “But I don’t think that anything of Mrs. Baker’s would quite fit me.”

            “Oh, not _that_ Mrs. Baker! Dr. Baker’s wife! That is to say, Dr. Baker’s mother, oh, goodness, it’s a bit difficult to explain, but never mind. We’ll find something for both of you. The attics haven’t been emptied in my memory.” The maid grinned broadly and hurried around the room. She flung open the wardrobe, which was empty save for a few hangers and a large, round basket at the bottom, which she hoisted up to her hip.

            “How exciting! I’ve not had cause to go up to the attics for ages, and I don’t mind telling you, you do see the _strangest_ things up there.” the maid smiled conspiratorially at the guests. “I shan’t tell anyone, if you would like to come along with me.”

            “Yes, please.” Nyssa said quickly. “I’d love to see more of this house.”

            “Well, I’m not waiting here while you’re exploring forgotten attics.” Tegan added. “I suppose we’ll have to make a party of it, then.”

            “That settles it! I’ve got the basket, so up we go. Oh, and we’ll need a lamp, of course.” Tilly added in her musical, cheery voice. She picked up an oil lamp from the nightstand, than paused. There were two lamps on the nightstand where she only expected one. And the one she picked up was still warm, as if it had been lit recently. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment, then her expression melted back into one of cheerful happiness. There was no room for that particular observation now, and there wouldn’t be until she was under the stairs with Phillipa and a basket of mending. Then, the second lamp could be a source of all manner of speculation.


	4. IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night falls, the plot thickens, and shockingly, a house in a story called "The Haunting of Wisteria Bay" might have a ghost in it.

 

            In a strange way, Nyssa was quite glad to have passed through the grim passageway before she visited the attic. The perspective made the whole experience most refreshing. Why, the uncomfortable feeling she had in this attic was mostly sadness. Nyssa couldn’t claim to enjoy feeling other people’s sorrows, dreams tucked away and forgotten, secrets, stiff upper lips and tears which their owners had refused to shed tucked away like love letters too embarrassing to post. In comparison to the passage, this was just a bittersweet breeze playing across Nyssa’s mind. It was true that there was nothing alive in the passage between her room and Tegan’s, and there had not been so for at least eighty years. But there had not been anything sane in there for much, much longer than that.

            She considered telling Tegan about her feelings, but as far as the otherworldly went, she was worse than Adric. Adric didn’t believe in anything that couldn’t be explained mathematically and scientifically. And even that was wider than Tegan’s need to see something physical or at least a reading on one of Dr. Davison’s instruments. For one thing, it included the existence of the number two. It wasn’t that Tegan didn’t believe in the number two, it was that she wasn’t particularly interested in the explanation as to why two, or any number for that matter, didn’t technically exist outside of theory. Adric’s problem was that he _was_ interested in it, and would talk about it for hours if given the opportunity.

            And Nyssa wasn’t quite prepared for the whole litany of expressing the possibility of a spiritual explanation and working Tegan into a hypothetical mindset where she might begin to entertain the possibility of what Nyssa felt as plainly as the wind. Nyssa still felt she didn’t know enough about spiritualism to discount it, and she was particularly empathetic, reading the moods of people whether or not they were actually present. She had come to discover that moods hung in the air like scents, and some could be cleared away more easily than others. She had attempted to find any way to quantify these feelings in a scientific manner, but as of yet had very little success. She had discovered that the tone of a conversation and the content could raise or lower the temperature of a room significantly, but she wasn’t about to start carrying about a thermometer to prove that; particularly when her own senses were so much more acute than the simple change of temperature. Even Tegan seemed to be effected by the attic’s atmosphere, though she would probably put it all down to the power of suggestion. To be fair, Nyssa knew that was at least part of it.

 

            “Jolly sort of place this is, isn’t it?” Tegan muttered darkly, pushing aside a cobweb. “Just the sort of thing you’d expect, hearing what you do about Dr. Baker.”

            “You can’t believe all of it, can you, Tegan?” asked Nyssa.

            “I don’t have to believe all of it to worry. I don’t have to believe half of it.”

            “And what, precisely, _have_ you been hearing?”

 

            Tegan opened her mouth to answer, glanced around for Tilly and noticed she was wearing a slightly cross expression of “I’m not hearing this” and thought better of it.

            “I’ll tell you later.” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure whether it was the maid’s unfortunate expression or the dim, dusty view of the attic that made her lower her voice. Something about this room made her to not want to raise her voice or make any sudden movements. It might have been the feeling that nothing had changed in there for years, but it was more likely the fact that she felt any loud noises or sudden movements were likely to cause an avalanche.

            Where everything in the passage was dark, everything in the attic was white with the sharp, shadowy light of the windows and years of dust piled upon it. Where the passage was crowded and tight, the attic seemed to stretch in all directions to distant and cloudy windows. The light was weak, but white and all around in a way that made Tegan feel like she was wrapped up in a spider’s web. There were certainly enough of those about, and in places it was difficult to tell where the dropcloths ended and the spiderwebs started. There was a feeling of vastness, winding narrow pathways between precarious stacks of trunks that were just as likely to be low enough for Nyssa to bark her shins on as they were to be too tall for Tilly to pull down.

            It looked as if there was order up here, once, but over time things needed to be put somewhere and were stacked haphazardly on each other until the organization was beyond recognition. Occasionally, something would peak over the general mess like a parapet of a distant castle; a hat-stand bearing an old white picture hat with moth-eaten feathers, a grandfather clock with a broken face, a musket that hadn’t been serviced since before Nyssa was born, in all probability. She remembered Tilly saying that the attics hadn’t been emptied since she had started working for the Bakers, but upon seeing them, Nyssa found herself doubting that they had ever been empty since the house was built. The further they explored, the more she get the impression this was not so much an attic as an oubliette; that the Bakers had been spending generations stuffing unwanted mementos up here so that associated events could fade from the collective memory.

            She took in more of the clutter: statues that were even more out of style than the rest of the house, a wardrobe with a broken door, a large doll with it’s back to her, which moved. The shock hit Nyssa in two pulses, first that a doll had moved, and second, that it clearly was not a doll but rather a child who had until that moment been standing very still. By the time those thoughts had untangled themselves from each other, she had two more. First, that she had let out a scream of surprise when whatever it was had moved, and second, with as little communication between her conscious brain and her body as she had when she screamed, that she had taken up two large handfuls of skirt and started running after the child.

            Stacks of old boxes wobbled slightly as she ran past them, turning closer to and away from her quarry as the clear path forked and petered out. She would catch a glimpse of curly blond hair and then it would disappear again, then suddenly hear the laugh of a young boy and there the figure was, ducking just out of sight ahead of her. Nyssa was only peripherally aware that she was in turn being chased by Tegan, and could only guess that Tilly was bringing up the rear, but most of her attention was focused on following the glimpses she saw running ahead of her without tripping over spilled hatboxes or stacks of papers tied together.

            “Will you slow down?” Tegan gasped, finally catching up with her friend. Nyssa stood in a comparatively clear patch of floor, looking around and then to the dusty floor.

            “What’s gotten into you?” Tegan asked, boggling expressively. “One minute you’re asking for gossip and the next we’re running a merry chase through old hunting trophies!”

            “I wasn’t asking for gossip-” Nyssa defended automatically, then thought better of it. “Did anyone see where he went?”

            “Where who went?” asked Tilly, fanning herself with a hand and looking quite out of breath.

            “Don’t tell me Adric followed us up here.” Tegan rolled her eyes. “If he’s trying to spook us, I’ll give _him_ a scare you don’t need an empty house for.”

            “It wasn’t Adric.” Nyssa said as quickly as she could manage. “I mean, I think it was a boy, but I never saw his face… he wasn’t tall, though, he could have been younger than Adric or I.”

            “But there’s no one in the house, not except the servants.” said Tegan.

            “And we don’t go into the attic if we don’t have a reason to.” said Tilly, looking worried for the first time since she met them. “What’s more, there haven’t been any children in the house, not since Dr. Baker and Dr. Baker were lads.”

            “No one young on staff?” asked Nyssa. “I know that some children join the service very young in England—“

            “No family’s been desperate enough to send a child to Wisteria Bay for _years._ ” Tilly said quickly, then covered her mouth.

            “What is it, Tilly?”

            “It’s not for me to say, miss. Mrs. Baker is a good employer, she is, and I won’t hear a word against her family. So don’t ask me to speak one.”

            “Why don’t they send children to Wisteria Bay?” asked Tegan. “Does it have something to do with Dr. Baker?”

            “Yes… well, no miss. No, they say no one’s sent children here since before he was born. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s nothing, it’s just this place… it gives you a queer feeling, doesn’t it?”

            “I don’t know if I’d be able to tell at this point.” Tegan replied with a sarcastic smile.

            “I’m certainly feeling very strange.” Nyssa frowned. “I was sure I saw someone, but I can’t see where they would have gone if they came this way. It’s hard enough to move in this attic even if you’re not running.”

            “I do hate to say it, but you have taken funny turns before, Nyssa.” Tegan suggested gently. Nyssa looked up at Tegan, feelings slightly injured by the suggestion and far more affected by how likely it was.

            “I didn’t feel anything, and I didn’t _faint!_ ” Nyssa protested. “There was someone here.”

            “No, no I’m sure you did see _something_ , but maybe, well, after what we saw in-” Tegan caught herself, “-what Dr. Baker said, anything would look like something that goes bump in the night.”

            Nyssa frowned. She didn’t like arguing with Tegan, and she wasn’t good at it. The fact that Tilly was standing between them with her mouth closed and her eyes open hardly helped matters. The worst part was that Tegan was perfectly right about how easy it was to imagine something eerie in this setting. Part of Nyssa was already wondering if she saw anything at all, while another part was doing the mental equivalent of gesturing madly one minute into the past. She decided that she would feel better telling Tegan about it, later, when Tilly wasn’t watching quite so keenly.

 

            Desperate to bring up another subject of conversation, Tegan idly dusted off the top of a nearby chest. There looked to be flowers painted on its wooden lid, somewhere between the many layers of dust.

            “Hm. Reminds me of an old story I heard once, about a house party some time ago… how did it start?” Tegan mused. “There was a party, and the entire family and the guests were playing a game of hide-and-seek in this enormous old house…”

            “I think I heard this one.” Nyssa joined in. “It was a wedding, wasn’t it? This family had a tradition of playing hide and seek at weddings. And the bride goes up to hide in the attic, but no one finds her…”

            “Yes, that’s it, no one found her for hours and hours, and then night fell and they called the police, but there was no trace of her anywhere in the house or any sign of where she had left to. And then-”

            “Then everyone assumed that she must have changed her mind about the wedding and run off with some secret lover!” Tilly finished. The other two looked at her and she blushed. She looked from Tegan to Nyssa, and rather meekly added, “Until her little sister married…”

            “…and her little sister, dressed in her wedding gown and hiding like every bride before her, goes up into the attic and finds a large old chest with a heavy lid…” Nyssa added quietly.

            “…which she opens up, and finds the dried, lost corpse of her sister, still in her wedding gown and trapped in the same chest she was about to hide in.”

            All three of them looked at the chest, and none of them said anything for a moment. The three girls glanced at each other, each quite sure that there was _not_ an ancient corpse of a young bride in the chest but none of them wanting to be the one who found out first.

            “It’s a silly story in any case.” Tegan said bravely.

            “Of course.” said Nyssa. “If the lid was too heavy for the older sister to push open from the inside, how did the little sister open it from the outside? It’s simple physics, really.” Even as she reasoned that, her mind designed three chests that would be quite impossible to open from the inside.

            “Well, we won’t know either way until its open, will we?” Tegan said, kneeling down in front of the chest to open it.

            “And it’s not as if anyone could even _fit_ in that chest in any case!” Tilly laughed.

            “No one larger than a child…” Nyssa added, again unsure if she had seen the boy. Tegan paused, her hand on the lid. Nyssa had picked exactly the wrong moment to say that. She steeled herself anew and pushed the lid open.

 

            There was a distinct lack of corpses.

            In fact, it rather smelled better than most of the attic. There was the faintest scent of flowers as she opened it, revealing a neatly folded stack of slightly yellowed lace. The top of the chest was papered with old, handwritten letters in a narrow, elegant hand and faded cut outs of fairies and flowers. Tegan gently picked up the top item in the stack, a wreath of flowers dried so long ago she was afraid to touch it.

            “Why, it’s a hope chest!” said Tilly. “Not Mrs. Baker’s, but I think the generation before that…”

            “I can only imagine it was _another_ Mrs. Baker.” Tegan replied, unfurling a pair of lace stockings in excellent condition, “Who else has lived here?”

            “I wouldn’t know, miss.” said Tilly. “I haven’t been with the family long enough to say.”

            “Clearly someone packed all of this up for some reason.”

            “The same reason everything else is up here.” said Nyssa, gesturing around. “Because the older a house, the less likely anything in it will ever get thrown away. The old rich families stay old rich families because they never need to spend any money, never needing to buy anything new.”

            “No, nothing ever leaves this house.” said Tilly, pulling a bit of tissue paper off of a folded dress. “The family looks after itself, even the dead provide for the living. This chest might be just what we were looking for.”

            “But if they were tucked up here, do you think it would be alright to borrow them?” asked Nyssa. “These are clearly antique items—”

            “—which is precisely what Mrs. Baker asked me to find.” said Tilly firmly.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            Nyssa stared at her reflection. Part of her fancied that the mirror was another portrait on the walls, not her face at all but only a family resemblance of a long-dead ancestor. She was all in blue and violet lace, coiled up into little flowers and butterflies edging far more of her shoulders than she was used to seeing. What the dress lacked in shoulders in more than made up for in skirt, she couldn’t help but feel that she could have hidden another person under it. She practically did have someone hidden in it while it was being done up, Tilly had to take in the waist with a few stitches hidden under a large blue flounce and quite nearly disappeared behind the skirt. She had never worn a hoop skirt before, but both she and Tegan thought it couldn’t be much different than a bustle. This was quickly disproved when Nyssa sat down to let Tilly rearrange her hair and the hem flipped up to her nose. Since then, Tegan and Nyssa had taken turns between being laced and occasionally sewn into the dresses, hoops, and petticoats, and practicing sitting in them.

            “How did ladies make it through doors in these?” Tegan groused, picking up her skirt by one of the bones. Despite her frustration, she did look quite good in the gown. She had needed far less alteration to fit into a dark green chiffon dress with pink roses around her shoulders and scattered across the skirt. While she had to admit that she looked well in it, she still wasn’t sure how she felt about the wide band of lace across the top of her head. It had apparently been quite _a la mode_ when the dress was made, but whenever Tegan caught her reflection she wondered if that meant in style or served with ice cream. It was rather more frilly than she normally dressed. Both dresses were at least twenty years old and possibly even forty, not so much out of date as out of graves.

            “I think you both look quite charming.” said Tilly, fixing the last lace butterfly into Nyssa’s curls. Something needed to be done with the extra butterflies after Tilly removed them to fit the shoulders to Nyssa’s. Nyssa cleared her throat gently.

            “We do rather… fit in with the general style of the house in these clothes.”

            “If you mean that we look like a couple of ghosts, we certainly do.” Tegan replied.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            “…and that one is Dr. Francis Baker, the first one in our family to take a teaching position at Transcendental Academy.”

            “Fascinating.” said Dr. Davison, his voice indicating the exact opposite was true. His host frowned, while Dr. Baker was perfectly aware that what he was saying was dull as dry toast, it was the first night and Dr. Davison could have been doing a better job of pretending it wasn’t. What’s more, there were only so many portraits in the dining room and Dr. Baker was running out of polite family history.

            Both men tried to think of something to fill the awkward silence and failed. Dr. Davison slid his hands into his pockets, Dr. Baker fiddled with a curl behind his ear, and they attempted unskilled small talk.

            “Have I-”

            “This weather-”

            “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” said Dr. Davison.

            “No, go on.” Dr. Baker insisted. Dr. Davison desperately tried to think of something polite to say to his colleague. Or at least something other than the obvious. He opened his mouth, and the politest version of the obvious fell out.

            “I don’t believe I’ve seen you in evening wear before.” he said, which meant “There’s a reason tuxedos usually only are made in black.”

            “To be fair, there are very few situations in which you would.” Dr. Baker replied, meaning “And I still have never seen you in evening wear, so I’m ahead of you.”

 

            If the dinner suit had been made in the usual black and white, it would probably have been the very picture of fashion, but in that case Dr. Baker wouldn’t have owned it. The suit was largely violet and scarlet, covered in delicate but clashing sapphire blue patterns and worn with a blue silk shirt. Next to him, Dr. Davison’s appearance had changed from unmemorable to practically invisible. The young professor had tried to straighten himself up somewhat, but lacking any sort of formalwear, all he had managed was to comb his hair and put a fresh sprig of celery in his boutonnière. In theory, Dr. Davison owned one uncomfortable suit to look smart at the academy’s funding dinners, but he had avoided most of those entirely by insisting he had to stay home and look over his charges instead. In truth, he spent much of that time in his workshop away from his wards, but if anything _did_ happen, he would have heard them scream.

 

            “It’s a good thing you two are so decorative, because you’re not doing much else to liven up the place.”

            The two doctors turned towards the door in unison. Dr. Davison wasn’t sure he liked being described as decorative, particularly not by someone wearing a dress nearly so fashionable as to be in bad taste; made in magenta and violet as loud and difficult to ignore as a tropical bird. The back was all ruffles, the front all bosom, and somewhere around where they met, most of Peri.

            Dr. Baker, on the other hand, was only too willing to agree with his wife’s assessment. He offered out a hand to her, casually commenting on her appearance.

            “Well, someone must be decorative, what with your terrible taste in clothing.”

            “You’re one to talk, I don’t think I’ve seen you in so few colors unless it was buff.” she replied coolly, tucking her hand into his arm.

            “Buff? Buff? Buff! I’ve never owned a buff suit in my life!”

            “Trust me, I’ve seen you all in buff.” she replied slyly.

            “Peri, there are children present.”

            “Fortunately, not at the moment.” Dr. Davison interjected. “I’m afraid that my charges take enough time to wash before supper when they are at home. I can’t imagine how long they’ll take running up and down these halls.”

            “I was referring to you, but…” Dr. Baker trailed off.

 

            Somewhere above them, there was a clattering sound, an angry hiss, and the sound of Turlough and Adric disagreeing as to which one of them had frightened one of Dr. Baker’s cats.

            “That would be them now.” said Dr. Davison with sardonic crispness, slipping both hands into his pockets.

            “Ah yes, what else goes bumpity-bumpity in the night but young boys?” Dr. Baker replied.

            “I wouldn’t know.” said Peri. “I’m having trouble imagining keeping one child, let alone four. How do you manage it?”

            “Poorly.” replied Dr. Davison.

            “I’m just pleased that there’s boys bickering in Wisteria Bay again and neither of them are me.” said Dr. Baker. “Thomas and I gave our nanny quite the run around when we were lads.”

            “I can imagine.” said Dr. Davison. “The two of you are enough to take as adults.”

 

            At this point, Nyssa and Tegan appeared. Usually they might have entered the room together, but the borrowed dresses made this impossible. There was the smallest disconnect in Dr. Davison’s head as he tried to remember if the forgotten dresses were from the same period as the classic architecture, but precise dates were never his strongest suit and he was far more concerned with Dr. Baker suddenly calling his girls thieves and throwing them out of the house.

            “Where on Earth did you find those?” asked Dr. Davison shrilly.

            “They were in the attic.” Tegan explained. “It didn’t look like anyone even remembered they were up there.”

            “Tilly said it would be alright if we borrowed them.” Nyssa finished.

            “Tilly?” asked Dr. Davison.

            “My ladies’ maid.” said Mrs. Baker. “Of course it’s alright. You both look wonderful.”

            “Might they have been Mrs. Baker’s?” Dr. Davison asked Dr. Baker. “I mean your mother, not your wife.”

            “Possibly my grandmother’s.” Dr. Baker mused, touching his chin. “I don’t remember my mother wearing dresses anything like that, even when I was young.”

            “Well, it’s still more than I could manage.”

            “And yet you managed to find some fresh celery.” Tegan commented, raising her eyebrow.

            “That’s something I never did know, but you might.” said Dr. Baker, stepping closer to the girls.

            “Where _does_ your guardian get that celery?” he asked in a stage whisper. “He seems to be wearing a fresh sprig every time I see him!”

            “I do like to stay prepared.” Dr. Davison offered.

            “For making an emergency salad?” asked Peri with a smirk. Dr. Davison looked helplessly at his girls.

            “Between man and wife, I’m going to be torn to ribbons before the week is out.”

 

            “You don’t mind about the dresses, do you, Dr. Baker?” Nyssa asked, touching the skirt of her gown.

            “Not at all. I’m glad someone will be showing up that fool Jackenapeston.” said Dr. Baker. Tegan looked at Peri for a translation.

            “He’s been saying Jayston’s name wrong all evening.” Peri explained.

            “He changed the schedule without consulting me, purposefully, to make me look like a fool. I’ll call him whatever I like.” Dr. Baker huffed.

            “It hardly makes a difference to me either way. I’m not even sure if I own something suitable in any case.” Dr. Davison offered with a shrug.

            “You only need to ask if you need to borrow one of my suits.”

            “I was rather afraid of that.” replied Dr. Davison quietly.

            “I see that you rose to the occasion anyway.” Tegan commented, eying Dr. Baker’s jewel tone dinner suit.

            “I usually try to balance him out more,” Peri shrugged. “But this is just what happened to be around. I wasn’t told we’d be changing for dinner tonight, either.”

            “It’s… still very balancing.” Nyssa offered politely. Peri snorted with laughter.

            “You mean they’re both eye-bleedingly bright.”

            “I- I might not have used the phrase ‘eye-bleedingly’.” Nyssa admitted.

            “I’m just lucky that it still fits the same.” She put her hands on her waist. “It’s been in the back of a wardrobe since the wedding.”

            “You have rounded out somewhat, but that’s what holidays are for. I’m sure Dr. Davison will be chasing the lot of us round a cricket pitch shouting about clean living in no time at all.”

            Dr. Baker was hardly the person who had a right to comment on his wife’s weight, and Peri’s face took on a curious expression, a bit pale, as she slowly opened her mouth. The last thing Tegan’s evening needed was to listen to those two have another domestic before she even got to have dinner. She said the first thing that came to mind in her attempt to derail the conversation.

            “Are those oil lamps?” Tegan asked. She hadn’t seen any up in wall brackets since she had moved to London. There was something terrible quaint about them and at the same time horribly depressing when she considered working by oil lamps all summer. They looked all the more curious and antiquated by the fact each of them was spaced between two lit gas lamps.

            “Yes, I’m afraid that my brother took it upon himself to install the gas lighting himself, with the result that the whole system is as unreliable as Thomas himself.” Dr. Baker explained brusquely. “It is fortunate that the oil lamps were not removed from the house, as I have no doubt that we will need them holiday is over.”

 

            Adric entered the room, looking at his shoes and very nearly walking into Tegan’s back in the process. Neither of them was happy about this.

            “It’s a ghost!” Adric exclaimed.

            “It’s me.” Tegan replied crossly.

            “That’s almost worse.”

            Unsurprisingly, Adric had not changed. Adric didn’t stop wearing his school uniform when term ended, so the idea of changing out of it for dinner didn’t occur to him. He had spent the time his sisters spent finding eerie clothes in eerie places seeing how many books he could ferry between the library and his bedroom without running into any of the staff. Around ten, he got bored and read, lying on his stomach in the middle of the floor and sucking on a travel sweet that had escaped into his pocket with fairly little lint attached to it. For once in his life, Adric might have been the most contented person in the house. Even stranger, he was so before he had dinner.

            Adric’s attention was caught by the Bakers, in the way that bright colours draw the eye. Peri noticed this, and more specifically the unfortunate side effects of his height.

            “I have a nice set of eyes, too.” Peri commented icily. Adric forced his gaze up to face level. If this was puberty, they could keep it.

 

            “Where’s Turlough?” asked Dr. Davison.

            “How am I supposed to know that?” asked Adric. “Is it time for dinner yet?”

            Adric idly moved towards a sideboard and poked at a potted plant. As Dr. Baker had whiled away the time waiting for them telling Dr. Davison the plant had been blooming continuously since 1823, the young professor was suddenly set by images of the boy breaking the pot and setting off another shouting match. Dr. Davison frowned, pulled a book out of his pocket, handed it to Adric and turned him by the shoulders towards a chair.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Please, just sit down, read, and try not to break anything until dinner starts.” Dr. Davison grumbled.

            “I didn’t-!” Adric protested, realised Dr. Davison wasn’t listening to him, dropped the book on the chair beside him, and started sulking.

            “Always in trouble, aren’t you?” asked a voice from the doorway.

            “And you’re always trouble.” Adric spat back at him.

            “Ah, Turlough, there you are.” said Dr. Davison. He cast his eyes across the room, automatically doing another headcount. The professor had crossed the room before he realised that in doing so, he had gotten to six instead of four and was momentarily puzzled before remembering the Bakers were not his children. He awkwardly met Dr. Baker’s eye and looked away.

            “That’s all of us, then?” Dr. Baker asked, having noticed Dr. Davison’s headcount and not being terribly amused by it. The host moved away from the wall, and Dr. Baker addressed the bizarre collection of guests, in a more bizarre assortment of clothes.

            “Forgive me for not warning that dinner would be a formal event tonight.” he said somewhat stiffly. “I had not be informed of it myself until this evening. Every other time I have visited this house without the rest of my family in attendance, they never asked it of me, so I assumed they would not ask it of you.” He frowned. “It seems the staff only stand on protocol if it gives them enough height to punch me in the nose.”

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            “What did I tell you?” Dr. Baker said jovially, raising a third glass of wine. “Whatever else can be said, the quality of food in this house is unparalleled.”

            Watching Dr. Baker eat, while his table manners far outshone his manners in other subjects such as conversation and discretion regarding appropriate behaviour around minors, answered every question Tegan could have had about his waistline. To be fair, the food was excellent. A salad she could only assume from the total isolation and freshness was grown on the grounds itself, onion soup, Yorkshire pudding, beef roast and a _glorious_ chocolate cake for pudding. Returning to Dr. Davison’s fry-ups after a summer of Mrs. Smythe’s cooking would be a bit of a let-down. Even Adric had nothing to complain about, even if for no other reason than his mouth being full.

            “It is delicious.”

            “Adric, you’ve got chocolate sauce on your mouth.” Dr. Davison pointed out, touching his own face. “Just there.”

            Adric, still chewing, touched the side of his face opposite the chocolate.

            “You’ve missed it.” This resulted in him rubbing the clear spot with his fingers.

            “Good god—you’ve got a napkin for a reason.” Dr. Davison hissed.

            Adric frowned at his guardian and rubbed the other side of his face with the napkin. This time, he at least managed to touch the chocolate sauce, even if the only result was smearing it further across his face. Dr. Davison rubbed his eyes wearily as Peri attempted not to laugh. Tegan had made no such attempt.

            “You… you’ve got it.” he said wearily.

            “Doctor-” Peri began. Both Dr. Davison and Dr. Baker looked at her. Her pretty face twisted into a little smile of frustration.

            “The one I married.” she clarified. “I don’t think you’ve ever explained to me why this house is called Wisteria Bay. There aren’t that many wisteria around, and it looks like those had been planted some time after the house was built. Like they had been an afterthought, to justify the name.”

            “Astute as ever, my dear Peri.” he replied. “My grandfather had those planted, and it took years to make them willing to grow here. The house had been here for generations before that, and both the house and the bay had their name for long before he was born.”

            “If there wasn’t wisteria growing here, why was it called that?” asked Tegan. Dr. Baker looked around the table, calculating his words. That was disturbing enough in itself to Dr. Davison, he was usually so outspoken at the club that Dr. Davison had to worry about any story that Dr. Baker would be hesitant to tell.

            “ _Wisteria Bay_ was named for a ship that crashed here in 1783.”

            “A hundred years ago?” Tegan asked, intrigued. Dr. Baker leaned back in his chair.

            “Yes… not quite to the day, but… yes, quite close. July of that year, I would have to look up the day. The anniversary will pass before we leave.”

            “What a comforting thought.” Turlough muttered into his pudding.

            “ _The Wisteria_ was a freight ship with a minimal crew, which turned out to be its downfall. It was carrying rather a lot of china, which while not the heaviest cargo made for some rather impressive wreckage.”

            “Dr. Davison, I would think you’d disapprove of this dinner conversation.” Turlough said suddenly.

            “Not at all.” he replied. “I would feel most disappointed if this story wasn’t told sometime before we left. I’m fascinated.”

            “In that case, I wish there was more of the story.” continued Dr. Baker. “Or at least that it had a happier ending. What actually happened on board is anyone’s guess, but there was a terrible storm, and _the Wisteria_ got turned around. It was hard enough to see your hand in front of your face, much less the cliffs this house was built upon. It is most people’s best guess that they thought they were a good mile off of the shore until it was too late. _The Wisteria_ crashed into the cliffs and what was left of her washed up in the bay. Eventually.”

          “Eventually?” Nyssa asked.

            “The ship wasn’t in one piece, you see. It took years for timbers to stop being washed ashore whenever there was another storm.” Dr. Baker explained. “You can still find pieces of broken pottery washed up on the beach from time to time. When I was a lad I fancied I might discover the wreck beneath the waves. I even went so far as to experiment making breathing apparatus suitable for undersea exploration, but the tide always proved to be too strong for me to see where I was, much less make any sort of search if I went any further underwater than I could manage unaided.”

            “As one does as a child.” Tegan commented. Dr. Davison nodded sagely, totally missing her sarcasm.

            “My… goodness, _thrice_ -great grandfather had some of the timber from the _Wisteria_ brought up and used it for an new wing he was putting on the house.”

            “This house is built from the timber of a _shipwreck_?” Nyssa gasped.

            “Not all of it. Just the second storey of the west wing.”

            “And what’s in the second storey of the west wing?” asked Dr. Davison. He raised his glass to his mouth.

            “My bedroom, for one.” said Adric.

            “So it turns out the house has a few spooks after all.” commented Peri, rolling her eyes. Dr. Davison had just taken enough of a sip to choke on it when Peri spoke.

            “Still, it seemed irreverent to the dead crew to not acknowledge the unintended donation to the construction, and so the house, and subsequently the until then ignored cove were named for the lost ship. It could as easily be called _Demeter House_.” Dr. Baker finished, smirking into his wine.

            “I beg your pardon?” Turlough asked, brow furrowed.

            “Ignore him, he thinks he’s clever when he references novels still being edited.” Peri responded dismissively.

            “And has the west wing any history of…” Nyssa paused, “…bizarre occurrences?”

            “More than the rest of the house, you mean?” Dr. Baker asked.

            “Oh really, Nyssa!” Dr. Davison protested shrilly, slapping his napkin forcefully into his lap, “There’s serious discussion of history and then there’s just encouraging superstition!”

            “Well, my brother always described me as a bizarre occurrence, but I doubt that’s what you mean.” Dr. Baker smiled, evidently enjoying himself.

            “I hardly see what’s bizarre about following family traditions.” Turlough commented snidely. “Including madness.”

            “Indeed. Mother always did treat it as one of Thomas’ most endearing qualities.” replied Dr. Baker, deliberately misunderstanding the boy. “He quite made a hobby of his eccentricity.”

            “Perhaps that’s the problem. With you it seems to be more of a lifestyle.”

            “I’ve more life and style than my brother, if that’s what you mean.”

            “Yes, so I’ve heard.” Turlough replied dryly.

            “Yes, I’m quite sure you have.” his host scowled. “For a Baker, I am _quite_ sane. Look back more than fifty years, and you’ll see that if I’m a disappointment to this ridiculous family it’s only because I haven’t murdered anyone yet!”

            “You wouldn’t do that, Dr. Baker.” said Dr. Davison with mock alarm. “Surely, if you were to kill anyone, it would be me, and you would have had the good manners to do it before that painfully awkward conversation just preceding dinner.”

            “Thank you, Dr. Davison.” Dr. Baker sneered, “Rarely are my good manners held in such high regard.”

 

            It was clear to Dr. Davison, if not to Dr. Baker, that Perpugilliam was made incredibly uncomfortable by this conversation.

            “I’m sorry, Dr. Baker, but do you think for one moment you might attempt to reign in some of your more dramatic impulses?” Dr. Davison asked wearily, “There’s entirely too much trying entirely too hard to be eerie here-”

            “Me, for one.” Turlough sneered.

            “ _I,_ for one.” Dr. Baker corrected.

            “I was getting to you!”

            “And I’m having a lot of trouble keeping the threads of vaguely unsettling stories separate.”

            “I do apologise, Peter. I shall try to space the ominous rumours over the course of the holiday.” Dr. Baker replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We wouldn’t want to get bored in the middle, now would we?”

            “You are a most considerate host, Colin.” Dr. Davison replied with his own, no less venomous distain. The chocolate cake was starting to taste strangely bitter in Tegan’s mouth, and she suspected it wasn’t agreeing with the question she had been holding back. She swallowed both the cake and her doubts.

 

            “What do you mean you haven’t killed anyone ‘yet’?” Tegan asked.

            “Tegan!” Dr. Davison gasped.

            “I’m sure she just meant to ask if there had been any violent deaths in the house.” Nyssa said quickly.

            “What do you mean?” asked Dr. Baker, leaning forward and setting down his glass.

            “While we were getting the dresses, I saw something in the attic, and…oh it sounds so silly put into words, but…” Nyssa shook her head. “Supposing… well, supposing that there is something to the idea that the dead do not immediately leave the earth they walked…”

            “Do you mean to ask if the house is haunted?” asked Dr. Baker.

            “Well… if you were to put it in so many words, yes.” said Nyssa, feeling somewhat silly. “Is there the remotest chance?”

            “Haunted? _Haunted_?” Dr. Baker laughed mirthlessly. “Haunted, indeed! Why should you think a house built on the grounds of a shipwreck, held by four generations by a family known host a variety of madnesses, some of whom died in suspicious circumstances; would be haunted?”


	5. V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While lost in the hallways, Adric considers death, physical love, and the impossibility of a ghost at Wisteria Bay.
> 
> This chapter accounts for the underage flag on this fic. While it contains some romantic scenes, there is nothing explicit and the underage person is not directly involved. But he does think about it, and it’s made abundantly clear that he is fifteen.

 

            It was a dark and stormy night, which Peri resented. She had gone through all the trouble of collecting a group of young, more or less innocent students and set them up in a house where they wouldn’t be bumping into each other’s elbows all summer and maybe actually enjoy some of the their youth. Mrs. Baker was still recently married enough to have parts of that role not quite sit well with her. It wasn’t her husband, she could have been married to him for forty years. But being the wife of a mad professor on the decedent and shameful edge of nobility was not something she could just step into, no matter what she thought of him.

            Dr. Baker was being of no help whatsoever to Peri. Her husband was apparently set on playing the lord of the cursed manor, the least that the weather could do would be to not play along with him. She had also hoped that it would do the house some good to actually _be lived in_ , not just have pull the sheets off of the furniture in one bedroom and one study and wad it in a corner of another usused room. At least the weather might have helped with that, forcing the party to explore the house rather than the grounds. Or it would have done, if Dr. Davison’s children were actually _children_ , teenagers were a lot less interested in play hide and seek in a creepy old house. Peri had joked about it to Nyssa earlier that day and she went quite white for some reason.

            Peri ignored the sound of the thunder and distant waves crashing below the cliffs. Part of her felt that if she had any idea what she was doing as a hostess, the weather could be doing anything and the house party would at very least pleasant. Or interacting. Or _something._ Even the murder mystery idea would be better than this. She passed between the gaslamps’ pools of light, which only just touched at the edges, the light ebbing and waning as she moved.

            If this went on she would end up turning into one of _those_ society wives, the ones who actually did host murder mystery parties and had very strong opinions about the London Season despite a total lack of children she wanted to see married. There was only one thing stopping her.

            She was bad at this.

 

            Despite having been here before and being extremely comfortable with the fact that she was married to the most overdramatic man she had ever met, she still wasn’t comfortable thinking about Wisteria Bay as _her_ house. Her house was in London, with her greenhouse and her plants and her chair, which she was very particular about reading in on rainy nights, even if her husband had taken a seat there first. It wasn’t that she had any reservation about sitting in his lap as if she hadn’t even noticed that he was there, but that when they were in that position he very rarely allowed her to get much reading done. Wisteria Bay was different. Peri barely knew a tenth of the house’s rooms, much less how they connected to each other. But she was fairly sure that if she turned left here, she would be in the library. Well, _a_ library. Five generations of scholars with a bit of a tendency to stick everything they owned in another room and forget about it rather than get rid of it resulted in more libraries than most of the towns Peri had visited before she was married. And in many cases, better stocked, but small towns rarely needed several shelves devoted to the history of undersea travel. For that matter, she doubted that the Bakers did either. Upon entering the room Peri was pleased to discover that she had remembered correctly, and this was a library, but somewhat bemused to see she wasn’t the first person to make that discovery.

            Peri might have been less embarrassed if Tegan wasn’t looking more comfortable than she had been since the train ride before Peri interrupted her. In fact, Peri couldn’t say for sure that she had ever seen Tegan looking more cosy than she did at the moment. The Australian had tucked herself up in a chair with her feet beneath her and a small blanket draped over one shoulder like a shawl. She looked far less surprised to see Peri than Peri was to see her.

            “I didn’t realise anyone was in here.” said Peri.

            “You can stay if you like, you’re not bothering me.” said Tegan, closing her book. “In fact, I think I’m happier with you her, this place still feels like a mausoleum.”

            “Well, I agree with you about that.” Peri half-laughed nervously. She drew her hands long the back of sofa. This particular library was about half-window and half bookshelves, with velvet-covered sofas and arm-chairs, which should have felt plush and cosy dotted around the floor. But their softness was not the softness of a comforting hug or a warm bed, but the feeling of petting an animal and wondering why it so still and its fur so cold before you realise that it is dead. No fire had been lit in the tall, decorative fireplace and if anything it made the room colder, damp drafts blowing down the chimney from the storm outside. Even the gaslamps seemed to be casting more shadows than light, and part of Tegan’s eagerness to close her book came from the difficulty she was having making out the letters. She set it on her lap, not bothering to mark her place.

           

            “And now I’ve interrupted your reading.” Peri rolled her eyes at herself. “Great. Not only have a dragged a bunch of people to a miserable old house in the middle of nowhere, but now I’m chasing down the guests and making sure they don’t have any fun on their own.”

            “I said you’re not bothering me.” Tegan insisted. “Anyway, I just realised that I’d read this book already.” Peri raised an eyebrow.

            “It looks like you made a good couple chapters in before you figured that out.”

            “In my defence, the last time I read this, it was in Italian.”

            “You speak Italian?” Peri asked.

            “It’s easier to read it, but I can speak it all right.”

            “I wish I could speak two languages,” said Peri.

            “Four. Ish.” said Tegan. “English, Italian, enough French for most purposes, and two Indigenous Australian languages which share just enough words to get really confusing.”

            Peri looked suitably impressed by this, which was a nice change. Adric tended to get cross when they encountered any other language and Tegan happened not to be able to speak it. He also tended to get annoyed when she did speak a relevant language and the whole group was forced to have a conversation through her. And he usually was annoyed if nothing, in particular, was happening, so if Tegan had ever been putting any effort into not annoying Adric it had stopped long ago.

            “I always wanted to travel, so I tried to pick up as many languages as possible,” Tegan explained.

            “Wow. I can barely manage the one.”

            “I don’t know, you sound alright to me.” laughed Tegan, “Except for the accent, of course, but I don’t think anyone else here is going to say I’m better off than you on that front.”

            “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.” Peri sat on the edge of the nearest sofa. “Nyssa said she grew up in Russia, right? Why does she have an English accent?”

            “I think she had an English tutor, at least for her languages. You’d have to ask her.” Tegan explained. “Same for Adric, but I don’t know about Turlough. He hasn’t even told me where he was from originally, only that he can never go back.”

            “So he’s foreign, too?” Peri asked, leaning forward with genuine interest.

            “Yeah, the doctor has a bad habit of picking up refugees whenever he travels. Sometimes it seems like he can’t see an orphan without taking it out of the country with him.” Tegan remembered who she was talking to. “I mean, _our_ doctor.”

            “I know, he almost got an American once.” Peri smiled. “That’s why I invited you here, after all. It’s kind of weird, but he was sort of almost my dad for about ten hours.”

            “Glad he wasn’t. Don’t know how I’d take it if you’d married _him_.” As soon as Tegan said that, she wished she hadn’t. Peri looked as uncomfortable as Tegan felt, so she could only imagine that it had occurred to her how little either woman wanted Peri to legally, if not emotionally, to be Tegan’s mother. It was all Tegan could think of for several moments.

 

            “But I thought Turlough had only joined you recently,” Peri said uncertainly. “I’ve been living with Dr. Baker for a while now, but he took me in because he thought that Dr. Davison had too many children already.”

            “Well, Dr. Baker wasn’t around when Turlough joined us, so he couldn’t have stopped him.” Tegan attempted to joke. “Maybe that’s why we’re spending the summer here. Maybe my guardian can’t keep your husband out of trouble, but your husband can keep my guardian from adopting anyone for the next two months.” Peri snorted.

            “Anyone who needs my husband for impulse control is in real trouble.”

            “I don’t know, it might be nice to give Nyssa a break.” Tegan shook her head. “Poor girl’s sixteen and she keeps ending up being the sense of reason whenever any of us fight.”

            “Speaking of which, where is Nyssa? I mean, I don’t expect you to be your sister’s keeper, but last I saw she was with you.”

“Oh, she was looking at some of the history books earlier. But she went up half an hour ago, she said she wasn’t feeling terribly well.” Tegan explained. “And not to sound unfriendly, but I was thinking of going to bed myself when you came in.”

            “That’s probably the best idea for all of us. Especially Nyssa,” said Peri. “She certainly seems to have a delicate constitution.”

            “She does, but don’t let that fool you,” said Tegan. “I’ve seen a lot of people underestimate her because she’s small and polite and faints easily. It never ends well for them. I wouldn’t want to cross her even if she wasn’t my friend."

 

            Tegan shivered and adjusted the blanket to cover more of her body.

            “Still, I don’t understand how she could get to sleep in this place.”

            “I have to admit, I’m going to have a hard time getting to sleep tonight. Can you keep a secret?” said Peri. Tegan considered herself fairly trustworthy, but her hostess didn’t give her time to respond before she continued. “I still haven’t gotten used to this place.”

            “I can understand that. It doesn’t feel like the kind of place you get used to easily. It’s weird enough to visit; I can’t imagine what it’s like being your home.”

            Peri’s expression grew slightly distant and bemused.

            “I _definitely_ haven’t gotten used to the fact it’s mine. Well, not mine, but… My family’s. That _this_ is my family, I mean. The last time I was here, me and Dr. Baker… well, I wasn’t his wife yet. I felt more like a guest.”

            Peri paused and smiled hopelessly at Tegan.

            “I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

            “It’s alright. Makes you seem more human.”

            “I didn’t know that was in question,” Peri smirked. Tegan smirked right back at her.

            “These days, I wouldn’t dare to guess.”

 

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            Peri and Tegan were not the only people awake at that time. Unlike Peri, however, Adric wasn’t at all adverse of the idea of going to bed and getting some sleep, only he was having a lot of trouble finding his room. He was now quite sure that he was in the right hallway and merely had to find the correct door, but he had neglected to take a candle or a lamp with him while he did so.

            Adric found himself rather wishing that he wasn’t wandering down this particular hallway in the dark, at least not by himself. Not that he was _afraid_ , he assured himself, but because one could imagine things while walking alone in an old house like this, and it was helpful to have someone to ask if they had heard that funny noise over the thunder or if he had turned down this hallway ten minutes ago. The house was just so _large_ , how was anyone to find anything? Especially in the dark. If the gas system at Dr. Baker mentioned extended to this wing, then it hadn’t been turned on. Adric paused, frowned, and turned around. He was sure that he was going towards his room—his in that it was the room he had dumped an armful of books into one of the chairs and spent a few comfortable hours reading there every day since the holiday started—but this wasn’t looking much like the hallway the guests had been assigned to. He remembered that Dr. Baker had mentioned the parts of the Wisteria had been used in the construction of the West Wing, and Adric had assumed he would be able to tell when he was passing a wall that was built out of part of a wrecked ship. He frowned to himself. It wasn’t as if he was picturing a ship’s wheel incorporated into a wall (in truth he had seen just that, but he didn’t _expect_ to actually see anything of the sort) but he thought that the wood might look a little more… salty.

            In the distance, Adric heard a noise. It was definitely someone’s voice, or several people’s voices, it was hard to tell with the way that it echoed. Spurred on by the thought that the other person might be less lost than he was, Adric turned down a hallway too dim to be sure if he’d passed it before and rushed towards the voice. If it were a maid or footman or some other rank among servants Adric couldn’t think of off the top of his head, they would surely know the house well enough to orientate Adric towards the guest rooms.

            Adric caught the first sight of the source of the noise, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was disappointed or not. Ahead, he could see Turlough, standing in a weak ball of light. He held a single candle quite near his face, cupping his free hand around it as it if were a small animal he was fussing over, and paused in front of one of the many portraits on the walls. It was difficult to see in the dark, particularly since the figure itself had been dressed all in black, but it appeared to be a middle-aged, well-dressed woman.

            “Turlough!” Adric shouted. Partway through, he realised there were probably people trying to sleep in other parts of the house and he didn’t know how close they were. On the last syllable, however, Adric decided that he didn’t care. Turlough looked quite surprised by hearing his name, and turned around in place, his hand still cupping the candle flame. He took a few steps away from Adric’s voice, apparently startled.

            “It’s only me.” Adric added, somewhat quieter, as he entered the edge of the candlelight. The older boy relaxed visibly and took on an expression that Adric could only interpret as “Of course you didn’t scare me, seventeen-year-olds are frightened of nothing, particularly not fifteen-year-olds.” He had seen that expression at school, and he didn’t like it any more when Turlough wore it.

            “So I see.” said Turlough, taking another step towards Adric. As the two boys drew closer to one another, Turlough lowered the candle and removed his hand from the flame.

            “Now what are you doing up at a time like this?”

            “I could ask you the same thing.” Adric retorted. The funny thing was, before Turlough had spoken he was almost prepared to not only offer the information that he was lost but go as far as to ask Turlough for help, but the tone of voice in which he asked was insufferable.

            Turlough looked around the hallways innocently.

            “I’m up… being up. Just having a look around the house, as there’s so little else to do here.” Turlough explained nonchalantly. Adric rammed his hands into his pockets and moved towards the older boy.

            “I was having trouble sleeping, to be completely honest.” Turlough smiled sheepishly. It would have been innocuous coming from someone else, but Adric had a great deal of difficulty imagining Turlough being completely honest.

            “It is a dreary place,” Adric admitted. “I find myself wondering why Dr. Davison brought us here.”

            “I’m sure he’s asking himself the same thing,” replied Turlough, drawing slightly closer to Adric than Adric was strictly comfortable with. Rather than recoil dramatically from him, Adric began to walk down the hall. Sadly, so did Turlough. It seemed that in doing so, Turlough must have moved further down the hall than Adric supposed, since none of the nearby paintings were portraits, much less portraits of women all in black. It was somewhat hard to see, however, because Turlough’s hand was still around the candle flame.

            “Why are you cupping your hands around the candle like that?” Adric asked. He gave Turlough a sideways look. “You weren’t— _whispering_ to the candle, were you?”

            “That’s a silly question.” Turlough laughed. Evidently too silly to answer, Adric thought.

 

            “What were you doing in this hallway, anyway?” asked Adric, walking as if he knew where he was going.

            “I was just looking at some of these paintings,” explained Turlough. He lifted his candle to show Adric a shadowy view of a depressing looking painting of a ship. If the weather and the grey colours weren’t dreary enough, a rather large shark, or a lot of teeth with a fish attached to it, was pulling the cleanest and prettiest sailors he had ever seen into the water. Adric had never seen a shark himself, but he was almost certain they didn’t look like that.

            “I can see why you’re so impressed by it.” Adric grumbled. “You were making an awful lot of noise for someone walking around looking at paintings. If Dr. Baker heard you, he’d probably go spare for interrupting his sleep.”

            “Was I making noise?” asked Turlough, evidently surprised.

            “That’s how I found you. I heard you talking.”

            “I was singing to myself.” Turlough explained. “The acoustics in these halls are rather marvellous.” Adric looked unconvinced. He attempted to imagine music coming out of Turlough’s mouth, and it just wasn’t happening. Then again, he wasn’t sure that what he had heard was music in the first place, but it did rather sound like Turlough’s voice. At least parts of it did.

            “At very least, one’s voice does sound much better by the time it reaches your own ears.” explained Turlough, looking slightly awkward.

            “I suppose that must be it,” said Adric, still sounding unconvinced. “Or at least an echo would account for why it sounded for a moment that there were two voices.”

            The older boy nodded in what passed for earnest affirmation coming from him. Some people have faces which are made for smiling, some people’s resting expression is indistinguishable from the verge of tears, and some people will look quite cross until they break into uproarious laughter. Dr. Davison’s face, if not in mid-snark, tended to default to mildly confused apprehension. Similarly, something about the turn of Turlough’s eyebrows and the set of his mouth gave the impression that he was in a permanent state of plotting something unpleasant. At this moment, however, this was mixed with a level of discomfort that either meant his plan had gone wrong or he wasn’t plotting anything and had just been told that he appeared to be plotting something. If “shifty” had been the look of the season, Turlough would be the most fashionable young man in his class.

            Looking as uncomfortable as he could about the whole situation, Turlough offered up a bit of proof that he had been singing.

            “ _As I was walking all alane, I heard twa corbies makin a mane; The tane unto the ither say, ‘Whar sall we gang and dine the-day_?’ ” Turlough offered quietly. Unfortunately, it didn’t sound much like what Adric had heard, but Turlough covered this up by offering further explanation.

            “It’s in an Irish dialect, of course, but a ‘corbie’ means a crow or a raven—”

            “I know what a corbie is, Turlough!” Adric snapped. “And it’s Scotch!”

            Clearly a young man with something to prove, Adric burst out the next line crossly and with a complete disregard for the tempo one usually sings dirges in.

 _“In ahint yon auld fail dyke, I wot there lies a new slain knight.”_ Adric paused slightly, then continued considerably more in tune. _“And nane do ken that he lies there but his hawk, his hound an his lady fair.”_

            Turlough looked somewhat startled by the discovery, but it had every appearance that when Adric put his mind to it, he had a fairly good if somewhat unfortunately high singing voice. Adric rammed his hands in his pockets and looked surly.

            “Choir was mandatory in school until I came to England.” Adric frowned. “One could, of course, muck about and cut out that period if you were desperate to cause trouble, but I was a rather special student. Advanced maths lessons, special uniform, being paraded out for school investors… I couldn’t be seen to be acting out like my brother.”

            “Your brother?” Turlough asked, looking confused. He looked even more confused when he realised, as Dr. Davison was currently acting as father to both of them, the term could be applied to himself.

            “That’s what I said.” Adric said crossly. “Before I met Dr. Davison, I was being kept in a boarding school with my elder brother, Varsh. What money our parents had left us paid for our tuition, and since we had nowhere else to go we stayed the whole year long.”

            “So why did Dr. Davison only take you back to England with him?”

            “Because Varsh was dead by that time.” Adric snapped. He turned his face into the shadow, trying to maintain his usual angry pout and not betray any other emotion. He wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

            “Pardon me if I’m mistaken, but I rather had the impression that Dr. Davison picked you up in one of those Scandinavian or Baltic countries. What was your school doing teaching the boys Scottish folk songs?”

            “Being as dreary as humanly possible.” Adric said flatly. Turlough went as far to smile at this, which was more than Adric could usually get out of him.

            “Ah.” said Turlough wryly. “Not that much different from English schools, then? Did you at least have a nicer uniform?”

            Adric took his hands out of his pockets and self-consciously pushed up the wrists of his shirt. He was wearing the slightly-too-large school uniform today, which normally he didn’t think twice about. He rarely gave any thought whatsoever to fashion and they were the only clothes he owned. But stood next to Turlough like this, he became acutely aware of the fact that despite there being only two years' difference in their ages, Turlough dressed as a young man and Adric still dressed very much a child.

            It occurred to him now with such a great level of resentment as if he had been thinking it on a daily basis for a year; Adric was fifteen years old and no business running around in knickerbockers. It was really past due for him to get a pair of long trousers but that was something that Dr. Davison had been putting off until next month’s paycheque for six months. A very small part of Adric was aware of all of unexpected expenses were far more important than simply getting Adric a better fitting set of clothes: Nyssa had been ill, the stove had needed to be repaired, a window broke, Tegan needed legal representation after a problem with her job (she was found to be at no fault whatever for the airbus tipping, but she was hardly paid retribution for it), Dr. Davison’s researches required more funding than the school was willing to provide. But the larger or at least louder part of his brain only saw that everyone else’s needs were being seen to before his. A more self-aware person might have noticed how much of his famously keen mind was allotted to self-pity, but Adric was fifteen and that amount of self-awareness often doesn’t develop until well into one’s forties.

 

            “If you’re out wandering this late, why don’t you have a candle?” asked Turlough. Adric shrugged.

            “I didn’t need one when I started, and I didn’t think I’d still be in the hallway for this long.”

            “Then are you lost? Do you know where you are going?” Turlough smiled nastily.

            “Of course I do!” Adric defended. “I’m going to bed.”

            “As am I.” said Turlough. “Our bedrooms are in the same hallway, shall we walk together?” Adric frowned. He had expected Turlough to tease him about getting lost, like Tegan would have done in his place. Somehow, this was worse.

            “Lead the way.” said Turlough pleasantly. Adric frowned again; he was finding that half of talking to Turlough involved frowning at him, and the other half was snapping. Adric walked back in the direction he had come from. He moved slowly and deliberately, partially to let Turlough guide them without knowing he was doing so, and partially because his mind took that moment to fixate on how embarrassing it would be to trip in front of Turlough. The two boys walked through the sepulchral hallways at the centre of the gold ball of light cast by Turlough’s candle.

            “Uncomfortably quiet.” Turlough said awkwardly.

            “I suppose that’s why you were singing.” Adric muttered back.

 

            For all his awkward attempts at conversation, Turlough couldn’t quite manage to look any less like a fixture placed in Wisteria Bay to make the whole house look more frightening. Dr. Baker may have been perfectly positioned to be some secret murderer in this overdramatic narrative Adric felt more a part of the longer he stayed in this house, but Turlough _really_ looked the part. Those bushy brows, that calculating smile, even though Adric was quite determined not to be afraid of anything in this hallway and certainly not Turlough, every instinct he had was to not trust the boy an inch. Perhaps, in the morning, when Adric could observe his—Adric’s stomach curled up uncomfortably at the title “brother”, but found that adding “adoptive” to it did not help much at all—being scolded by Dr. Davison and standing in full light, he might be able to see Turlough as the harmless little toad of a boy Adric was sure he actually was.

            In fact, it made Adric rather cross and impatient with Dr. Davison, he barely had known Turlough at all before he welcomed him into the family, shoving him into the ranks like he would get some sort of reward for gathering as large a family as possible.

            What Adric was not aware of was the fact he was not making the long, dark hallway seem any more inviting himself. With how little he was speaking, and the high, impatient voice when he did, Turlough could almost imagine that Adric wasn’t there at all, and this dark-haired, scowling child was just one of the many stiff and lifeless portraits glaring at him from the walls. Unlike these portraits, however, Adric followed alongside him and did not let up his unhappy glare for a moment.

            Turlough had been considering earlier, among a great deal of other things and none of them comforting, how each figure in each painting was, by this time, quite dead. There was something vaguely comforting in knowing that he wasn’t likely to see any of these people hiding in a disused corner of the house. But at the same time, it wasn’t what he could describe as a happy thought.

 

            “Adric?” Turlough asked quietly. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

            The question had come as suddenly and unexpectedly as a blow to his stomach, and got a very similar response. Adric opened his mouth and looked both baffled and insulted but didn’t immediately respond. Gathering a bit of confidence, Adric drew his shoulders back, folded his arms dramatically, and scoffed. It was practically a theatrical performance.

            “I suppose you think you’re funny, Turlough?” Adric huffed. “I don’t know what sort of snipe hunts you used to send underclassmen on, but you’ll find that I am a great deal cleverer than most boys my age. Cleverer than boys your age, and most adults, come to that. I don’t go around believing in everything I’m told. If something exists, then there is solid, scientific proof of it.”

            Turlough smiled coyly.

            “I take it that means ‘No’?”

            “Well of course, it does!” said Adric. “I’m too old to believe in fairy stories! _Or_ ghost stories.”

            “You sound awfully sure about that.”

            “Let’s leave it at this: if ghosts were real, I would have had ample opportunity to have been proven wrong before now.”

            “And I suppose, if _you_ haven’t seen one, then no one has?”

            “Are you actually stupid enough to think that’s how scientific thought works?” Adric asked crossly. “All sorts of things I haven’t seen exist, things no one has seen or ever will exist quite happily without anyone observing them at all.”

            “Oh, that’s comforting,” said Turlough. He sneered. “For a moment I thought that undressed ladies were another fairy story.”

            “Stop trying to wind me up, Turlough.” Adric scowled. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. When we die, we are dead. There’s nothing more to it. I almost liked it better when you were singing.”

 

            After a moment, Turlough opened his mouth again and picked up the song where Adric had left off. Adric looked fairly surprised by this, he hadn’t meant mentioning Turlough’s singing as an invitation to start up again.

            “ _His hound is to the hunting gane_  
        _His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,_  
 _His lady taken_ anither _mate-o_  
 _So we may make our dinner_ swate _-o._  
 _So we may make our dinner_ swate _.”_

            The lyrics weren’t helping Adric’s mood in the least. Adric rather disliked the idea of being forgotten so quickly after his death, and he especially hated the idea of being replaced. He hated it when he found out he would be living with Dr. Davison, and he hated it more with each subsequent child his guardian took on. He wasn’t about to let Turlough know it was bothering him, of course, that would certainly only inspire Turlough to think up new depressing songs to torture him with. Adric took a deep breath and tried to think of Turlough as if he were someone actively attempting to hurt him or his family. If that were the case, then Adric had a trick that he found worked rather well to make people threatening him stop doing so: to agree enthusiastically with whatever the potential danger was saying.

            It didn’t work as well with his adopted family, partially because they knew him too well and partially because he couldn’t keep it up all the time. He wouldn’t want to, really, while he had no qualms whatever in being deceitful to someone to prevent them doing someone harm, particularly when he was the someone; it was the privilege of his friends to be exposed to the real Adric. As the real Adric was moody, self-important, and a bit of a prat, this may not have been the best reward, but the same lack of self-awareness prevented this from occurring to him.

 

            He considered that if he snapped at Turlough to stop, Turlough would probably snap back at him and storm off in a huff, taking his candle and the general direction of how to make it back to the guest hallway with him. Not much of a potential danger, but it was near enough to that style of situation that Adric’s instinct to get people he didn’t fully trust onto his side kicked in before he was fully aware of what he was doing. He began to sing along with Turlough.

            There is a certain morbid delight expected in teenage boys describing the bloody actions of a pair of ravens ripping apart a human corpse, but with Turlough and Adric being who they were, they couldn’t really muster a grin between them.

            " _Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,_  
             _And I'll pick out his bonny blue_ een _;_  
 _Wi many a lock o his golden hair_  
 _We'll thick our nest when it grows bare._ "

            The ball of light, its two occupants, and the song moved slowly down the hallway, illuminating the dreary paintings one by one, and if any of them were attempting to make the house look less like a ghost was about to jump out from a doorway, they were failing spectacularly. The thought occurred to Adric, as well as the pun “spectre-tacularly”, but his disgust over the joke and the apprehension of the dim hallway cancelled each other out.

 _“There's many a man for him makes mane_  
 _But none shall ken where he is_ gane  
 _O'er his white banes when they lie bare_  
 _The wind sail blow for_ evermair _-o._  
 _The wind sail blow for_ evermair.”

            As the boys finished, becoming more and more aware of the fact that neither of them had the least of a Scotch accent and much of the dialect sounded perfectly ridiculous with their pronunciation. Part of Adric wondered where Turlough had come from before he moved to England. He had made it clear that he was a foreigner, but his accent didn’t help place him any more than Nyssa’s or Adric’s did, they all had learned English from English tutors and spoke with the accent that had been drilled into them.

            There was a bit of awkward silence after the song, and Adric finally started recognising parts of the house he had been in before. Either Turlough had taken him the long way through the house, or Adric had gotten much more lost than he thought he had. Adric frowned slightly, he always thought of himself as having a good sense of direction, but as soon as he was in a house he could get lost in twenty seconds.

 

            “It’s quite an image to think about, I will admit.” said Turlough.

            “What? The ravens?”

            “Ravens ripping apart the corpses of fair-haired men.”

            “Do you refer to Dr. Davison or to Dr. Baker?” asked Adric. Turlough paused.

            “Let us just say it is easier to imagine the one I’d less prefer to see.” he answered.

 

            Turlough stopped and turned around to face Adric. For the slightest moment, Adric thought that Turlough was about to tell him something of great importance, or at least something that called for the drama of looking someone full in the eye. Then he realised that they had finally reached the guest wing, and Turlough had found his own room.

            “Goodnight, Adric.” said Turlough, holding the candle near his face so the shadows cut his face into unconnected black and white angles. Dramatically, he blew it out and plunged Adric into blackness. The door to his chamber had shut before Adric’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. The young man turned away, straining his eyes to see enough of the shadows to feel his way back to his room. Moving awkwardly through the darkness, Adric felt what many men feel as they move through the night, a need to hear some reassurance or prayer to remind themselves that despite the setting they were quite safe.

 

            “What a complete prat.” was as good a prayer as any. At least it proved to himself that he wasn’t in a horror novel. Adric had never read a horror novel where someone called someone else a prat. For that matter, Adric didn’t read many horror novels at all, a fact for which he was quite grateful at the moment, because he was sure that if he had then his mind would be reciting all of them at once over each other. And then, perhaps, he might do something a bit silly.

            A thin beam of moonlight was visible under a door he took to be his. It was so difficult to say in this house, but he was fairly sure he had opened the curtains in the room assigned to him. That meant that moonlight would be coming out from under his door, whether or not this was it. It was worth checking at any rate. He carefully opened the door.

            It was then that Adric realised that he wasn’t heading the way he thought he was. It was quite good that he opened the door so carefully and so quietly because if he hadn’t, he might have risked waking the figure in what was very clearly not his bed after all. Not unless Nyssa had made a mistake quite like the one Adric was certain he did.

            In the moonlight the room seemed devoid of any colour, even Nyssa’s normally rosy cheeks were as fair as if she had died. Her face was livid white against the deep maroon of the coverlet, the palest thing in the shadowy, desaturated room. Her dark curls were spread around her face like the petals of a wilting flower. One of her hands was balled on the pillow beside her head and the other closed on her chest, it looked like she might have fell asleep holding something around her neck.

            Perhaps if Adric _had_ read more horror novels, he would have found something trite about seeing a lovely young woman sleeping in a canopy bed with its curtains drawn back so that the moonlight could make her thin and frilly nightdress look like it was glowing, but that probably wouldn’t have diminished his appreciation of the view overly much.

            It would have been absolutely disgraceful to watch someone without their knowledge, even if it had been a mistake. If you happened to come upon someone sleeping, that was hardly your fault. But standing over someone while they slept? That was creepy and embarrassing. The sort of thing that he might have expected from Dr. Baker, a mad old man who owned a large scary house between a moor and a bay full of shipwrecks. Adric thought this, and many other thoughts in the same vein beside, but his eyes remained on Nyssa. He was quite aware that sort of behaviour wouldn’t do at all, carrying on like he thought he was some sort of gothic hero; and that he ought to stem it off immediately before he started making grandiloquent speeches or wearing more than three colours at once.

 

            Adric weakly attempted to make this mistake less offensive to his own sensibilities; he had no idea Nyssa was behind the door and certainly hadn’t intended to spy on her while she slept. Of course, this required him to correct his error immediately and without the least regret. At least one if not the other, if both together proved impossible. He quietly closed the door and crept along the dark hallway. There were only so many doors, even if they were so widely spaced. He was sure to come upon his own room quite soon. Adric crept along to the next thread of moonlight, sure that his own bedroom was just beyond Nyssa’s. He was incorrect but quite sure.

            It didn’t help his sense of direction that the further he walked from Nyssa, the more his thoughts wandered towards her. He wasn’t frightened, he repeated to himself, but the night was cold and the hallway dark, and his thoughts had been running along similar veins. Had she been awake, it might have been a comfort to speak to her.

 

            She was quite useful in that regard[1], Adric was quite sure that her presence would be a welcome balm after listening to Turlough wander about the hallways singing about death and ghosts to creepy paintings of strange women and hopefully inaccurate sharks. He could easily imagine Nyssa awake, walking beside him as he moved from one dim line of moonlight to another in search of his own room.

            Her curls would be bouncing as she walked, and the hem of her skirt would be swaying gently to the same rhythm. She would greet him warmly, calling out his name the moment she saw him at the other end of the hall.

            He imagined that she would be laughing, but not in a condescending way. She would slip her hand into his as they walked and the skin of her hand would be warm to the touch, he knew that his hands were entirely too cold for what should have been a warm summer night, even if it was raining. She would coax him to speak, gently but astutely pointing out his strange behaviour. This was easier to imagine than anything else, even her smile or the smoothness of her hands or—Adric wouldn’t admit it, but he turned quite red at the thought—the soft velvet of her dress as he put his arm around her waist.

            Then she would turn to Adric, a much braver Adric, an Adric much less likely to have said something he shouldn’t have by the time she was holding his hand, an Adric who, in short, only existed for this fantasy. And this more affectionate Nyssa would smile at the braver Adric, and every little thing he had noticed about her before would be so much closer and easier to appreciate than ever before: the stunning pale teal colour of her eyes, like seaglass, with those thick sultry lashes she could look up through and put him entirely in her power. She would reach up to him, that soft hand would touch his cheek—there was hardly an inch of difference between their heights and that could go either way depending on how Nyssa styled her hair, but what’s the point of having a fantasy if you can’t be a bit taller while you’re at it? Yes, she would reach up to touch his cheek, he would have a moment to savour the fact that finally, he and Nyssa had found a moment alone, no chaperones, no elder teenagers making snarky commentary, no cricket balls innocently whizzing past his head because “I overshot a bit, I was afraid I might have hit you!”

            And then, Adric thought triumphantly, they would kiss.

 

            It was very, very easy to imagine kissing Nyssa when she wasn’t there. When she was, she tended to notice that his thoughts were elsewhere and attempt to get his attention, and every inch of imaginary Nyssa would be blotted out with a very real Nyssa who wanted him to pass her a book and possibly explain why he had just turned red. Of course, Adric knew that the real Nyssa who just wanted a book passed to her was preferable to imaginary Nyssa with her arms around him, but when you got down to it, he also liked apples better than pears, but he wasn’t about to turn down the juicy slice of pear his mind had just offered him, particularly when there was no apple to be had.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            “Teenagers!” Dr. Baker huffed distastefully. “It seems that I can’t turn a corner without running into another sulking teenager!”

            “That’s an exaggeration.” his wife scolded. “There’s a lot more corners than teenagers in this house.”

            “Which is what makes their ability to be underfoot constantly such an accomplishment.”

           

            The Bakers lounged around the master bedroom, displaying their shared talent for having simultaneously languid and irritated posture. An ability no less impressive than the Davison family’s ability to appear precisely when Dr. Baker was in a particularly poor mood. Peri perched on the end of a couch surrounded by a froth of lace that was probably all attached to her peignoir and holding a book which she believed was about the splicing of different breeds of fruit trees, but given how much of it she had been able to read over the sound of her husband’s ranting could have been about the French Revolution for all she knew.

            Dr. Baker hadn’t made it as far into his undressing, striding grandly back and forth across the bedroom, in his stocking feet and his shirt studs and cufflinks removed so that his shirt flapped behind him like a sail as he paced. In a fine example of distraction, he’d been undressing for several minutes and managed to removed his jacket but not his waistcoat. Dr. Baker had a terrible time keeping valets employed, despite what he could pay very few accomplished servants could stand the combination of Dr. Baker’s terrible temper and worse dress sense. There were a number of footmen who were supposed to have decided amongst themselves who would be taking that responsibility for the duration of the summer, but thus far they had all avoided the decision lest the responsibility fall upon themselves, and they could only be cajoled into appearing before dinner and sometimes very early in the morning.

 

            “This is precisely why I try to avoid my family.”

            “It’s my family too, now,” said Peri testily. “I know you don’t get along with your brother, but I don’t think we’ve quite exhausted relations just yet. I’ve barely seen your parents since our wedding.” Peri frowned. “In fact, I know you’ve been using me as an excuse to avoid them ever since I was your ward.”

            “That is far more for your sake than theirs. You know perfectly well how my brother acts around you, like he’s just looking for a reason to call the watch on me.” Dr. Baker huffed. “My parents would be even worse, Tom still spoke to me on occasion after I entered college.”

            “Or maybe you’d get along better now. You have… settled down a bit since we were first engaged. Nearly everyone I know who's married said that they started understanding their parents better after they’d been married for a time.” Peri smiled hopefully at her husband. He shook his head.

“With the deepest respect, my dearest, you are the only person who I’ve contrived to feel any warmth towards me, and I’m still not entirely sure how I’ve done it.”

            “You’re not the only one,” she grumbled.

            “I fear my manner is not suited to family life,” said Dr. Baker. “I’m far too… contrary. I have a weak enough grasp on my sanity without the incessant prattling of children.”

            “But if you did have children, they wouldn’t be like Peter’s wards.” Peri pointed out. “They would be younger for one, at least at the start. And they would be yours, so maybe they’d be a bit more like you.”

            “Oh, and that is by far a vast improvement!” Dr. Baker scoffed. “My darling Peri, you are quite the finest woman I have ever met and I would never wish any more of me upon you.”

            “Ideally, they might have something to do with me as well.” Peri replied sarcastically. “At least, they’d be more like me than Dr. Davison.”

            “I had never met any of his children, apart from Tegan and then very briefly. Her guardian had left an important piece of instrumentation at home, along with his lunch, and she fetched both of them to him.” Dr. Baker continued. “But to hear him describe his children, I wouldn’t have guessed Adric as more than eight or nine. There was a time I wasn’t entirely sure whether Nyssa was a babe in arms or a debutant.”

            “And now that you’ve met her…?” Peri prompted with a smile. Dr. Baker paused.

            “I might describe her as a debutant in arms. Her health is somewhat more mercurial than I expected, twice I’ve found her dozing in the library.”

            “At least she always has something nice to say. I don’t know how she does it. Part of me thinks she’s sweet but part of me wants to… find out how she manages to be so polite all the time. Especially with the others always arguing around her. And I’ve got _no idea_ what I think of Turlough. No. That’s not it. I have no idea what Turlough thinks of me.”

            “Yes, I’ve never known a lad to use so many words to say so few things.”

            “At least Tegan was willing to speak to me today, that’s more than I could say about the rest of Peter’s wards.”

            “ ‘Peter’s wards’?” Dr. Baker repeated. “Peter’s wards, indeed! That’s twice you’ve called them that. How long have you been on first-name terms with Dr. Davison?”

            “He’s our guest, isn’t he?” Peri argued. “Shouldn’t we _both_ be treating him as a friend? Why else would he be here?” Dr. Baker sank onto the bed, looking quite exhausted by the argument.

            “I will admit…” he began sheepishly, “That when I extended the invitation to Davison and his family, I thought that if they did spend any time with us, it might… sour you somewhat to the idea of a brood of your own.” Peri straightened in her seat and crossed her arms.

            “Am I hearing you right? You were trying to manipulate me into not wanting any kids?”

            “No, not manipulate you, more—give you a taste of what you wanted to see how it sat with both of us.”

            “Colin, you know that I want children.”

            “And I love you for it, but it’s an incredibly stupid thing to want in the circumstances.” he sighed. “There’s been madness in every generation of my family, and Tom seems to be the only one who has turned it to any use! I don’t… I don’t want to see you suffer the childhood I gave my parents.”

            He buried a hand sullenly into his mop of curls.

            “And I don’t want anyone to suffer the childhood they gave me.” he murmured. Her hand touched his, and Dr. Baker suddenly realised that Peri had not only stood up but was now standing beside the edge of the bed.

            “You barely talk about your childhood, only that you hated it.” Peri pleaded. “Please, please just tell me what happened. I can’t stand to see you sulking like this and not even know what’s hurting you. I know that you didn’t have anyone to tell about it for a long time, but… you have me now. Please let me help you.”

            He looked up at her sadly, and for a moment it appeared he was very much considering baring every sordid detail of his unhappy childhood. Then he frowned and looked away from her.

            “I’ll explain later.” said Dr. Baker.

            “Later! Later!” Peri huffed. “That’s all I hear from you, later! Will you explain what’s going on? Later! Can go somewhere nice for once? Later! Is there _anything_ you have to say to me _now?”_ Peri demanded. At first, her husband had the dignity to look insulted, but at the sight of the offended expression on her face this melted into amusement.

            “Perhaps.” he smiled. He then put a hand on the side of Peri’s face, tilted her chin up, and kissed her slowly and deliberately on the mouth. If he was very particular about how he went about it, there were a great many arguments he could stop by kissing her. It was one of the discoveries about marriage that surprised him the most.

            “There’s something else I’ve heard ‘later’ about more often than I’d like.” Peri murmured as he drew away.

            “In which case, my dear…” he paused to kiss her again. “Later is now.”

            Peri laughed softly and shoved her husband down among the pillows. He made an offended noise, but hardly put his heart into it. He couldn’t really claim to be offended, particularly when his wife was straddling him.

            “Now which am I going to do?” she asked, grinning. “Should I make you explain more about your past, or make the next few minutes of your future _very_ interesting?”

            “A few minutes? You underestimate my ardour.”

            “I think I can make a better guess about that subject than most people.” Peri laughed sceptically. “I’ve got some experience, as well you know, and experience suggests…”

            “We’ll have none of that! ‘I’ll stop your mouth…’ ” he quoted, kissing her on lips. The length and intensity of the kiss did nothing to derail the topic of conversation and Peri immediately started up again as if there were not the least gap between their words.

            “Don’t you dare try and get Benedict on me, you big oaf. As I recall, we didn’t even get to see the end of that play last time it was in London.”

            “But do you recall why that was?” he teased.

            “Oh, I remember.” she smiled wryly. “Why did you think I said, ‘a few minutes’?”

            “Oh, you wretched woman!” he laughed. “Now I’ll simply have to prove myself, won’t I!” He pressed her into the pillows and kissed her mouth at such a length that would have really quite bored him if he were not the one doing it. At length, he broke away, apparently so that his wife could see how pleased he was with himself.

            “Of course you know I have loved you for some time.” Dr. Baker purred, arranging himself more comfortably beside her.

            “I did have my suspicions.” she grinned. She touched his face. “So when did you figure it out?”

            “Which? That I was in love with you or you were in love with me?”

            “Either one. Both came as a shock to me.” she answered lightly. He paused, toying thoughtfully with a curl behind his ear.

            “I may not have been quite aware of it at the time, but I remember a particular conversation you had with my brother.” Dr. Baker said finally. “You were still quite young, rather too young for me to think of you in that context, to be brutally honest—”

            “—but if we’re being that honest, men had been putting me ‘in that context’ for two years before I met you.”

            “It was after I’d taken the first steps to make you formally part of my family. My brother took your hand and said—” Dr. Baker put on an impossibly deep voice. “ ‘It’s a pleasure to have you in the family, Perpugilliam. You simply _must_ call me Tom.’ ” Peri giggled, wrinkling her nose.

            “And I said, ‘Must I?’ ”

            “And I found myself more pleased than I had been for anything else my life had yet included that I had chosen to spend my life with you.” he finished fondly, cupping her face in one hand. Peri looked away from him, trying not to blush and failing horribly. The only thing to do would have to be making him blush even more, she thought, a mischievous smirk just starting to form.

 

            “You know, you own a _lot_ of really ugly vests, but this is bad even for you.” said Peri. She began to undo the buttons. “It’s hideous. I can’t look at it anymore, it’s got to go.”

            “It’s a waistcoat, not a vest-” he argued, shrugging off the offending garment, which he then flung to the other side of the room. “-and now it hardly matters at all.”

            He gave Peri a number of brief, intense kisses, interrupted by “…you know… now that… I think about it…” every time she took a breath. She pulled back and took his collar in both hands.

            “I didn’t really notice with the vest over it, but that is a really ugly shirt. It clashes _horribly_ with your pants. Did you get dressed in the dark?” Peri chided, undoing his buttons. “Off it goes!”

            “You’re a fine one to talk, all folderols and lace!” Dr. Baker responded, pulling her robe down and kissing the exposed shoulder. “You look like a cake!”

Peri tilted her head back and allowed him to kiss her neck with evident delight from both parties.

            “You’ve uncovered my clever plan.” she grinned, burying a hand in his curls. “I thought if I dressed like a cake, maybe I would get your attention for more than five minutes…. _ah!_ ”

            “What’s this?” he chuckled, pulling back far enough for her to see his supercilious expression. “You compare yourself to a cake, but object to being bitten? One could argue that was the main activity one engages cake in.” She waggled a finger at him.

            “Ah ah. Did that sound like I objected? I objected to your vest, remember, and that got a completely different reaction.” He glanced down, and then raised an eyebrow to Peri.

            “Have you any objection to my trousers, by any chance?”

            “Oh yes.” Peri grinned. She kissed him again and nuzzled his ear. “They’re worse than the vest.”

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            Now how was it that he had come here? Adric wondered to himself. He was surely in the guest wing just a moment ago, but he became quite sure that this was no longer the case. The trouble was as these hallways looked the same to him. He made a mental note not to mention that to the rest of the house party, especially not the hostess.

 

            Suddenly, a woman’s scream pierced the night, setting Adric’s skin taut with fear. Instinctively, Adric ran in the direction the scream had come from, not knowing what he would do when he got there or how he could possibly help. He wasn’t as familiar with her as the other people in the house, but it sounded like Peri’s voice and from the sound of it, she was in pain. Perhaps Dr. Baker had one of his funny turns that all of his students whispered about and he had attacked his wife.

            He moved closer to the where the scream had come from, listening intently for a second scream. None came, but he was able to discern softer noises from the same direction, like someone moving furniture about. At first, Adric wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing, only that the sound had carried from somewhere and that it _probably_ was a human voice. Two voices, both rather excited by something. For the slightest moment, Adric thought that Dr. and Mrs. Baker were having one of their rows again. This idea dissolved very quickly, turning Adric bright red in the process. He might not have had much, or any, familiarity with what they were actually doing but Adric had plenty of experience with arguments and that was definitely not what he was hearing.

            The possibility that the Bakers had installed fairground equipment in their bedroom was rather unlikely compared to the possibility that their marriage had aspects Adric had only really heard of in regards to marriage. And since the various sounds he was hearing were comprised of nothing more mechanical than bedsprings, the latter seemed far more likely. Turlough had clearly gone through quite some effort to scare him, but that was proving not to be the reason this night would haunt him for the rest of life. After all, ghosts were probably not real but there was never any scientific doubt to the reality of what Adric had hitherto only thought of as reproduction.

            If he found the idea of watching Nyssa sleep distasteful, the idea of standing around and continuing to hear what he was hearing was an offense punishable by… by having to remember what he was hearing at any point in the future. Adric turned in place and went back the way he came. It might or might not lead him towards his own bedroom, but he hoped that if he could no longer _hear_ what the Bakers were up to, he wouldn’t be thinking about it. Or Nyssa, for that matter.

            The image of an overweight man making love to his significantly younger wife mortified all thoughts of romance far from Adric’s mind. As a fifteen-year-old, part of him still felt that physical romance was the private playground of people under the age of thirty, and was highly disturbed when reminded how little this resembled the truth. Adric moved at speed through the dark hallways, taking a great deal less care whether or not he tripped, though it occurred to him, as he turned a corner, that if he _did_ fall or knock something over, the people he could hear would be liable to hear _him,_ and that was a conversation he would go at any lengths to avoid.

            Either they would take him for the sort of person who listens at the doorways of married couples and there was absolutely no way he would be able to hide that from the other members of his adopted family, who would use it to make him miserable whether they believed it or not.

            Or worse, Dr. Baker might take an interest into that gap in Adric’s education and seek to remedy it. Adric wasn’t imagining a live display, of course, but Dr. Baker pointing out ink illustrations in an anatomy book was quite bad enough. No matter what curiosity he held, Adric could not imagine ever being _that_ curious.

            That said, and now that he had put some distance between himself and his hosts, Adric had to admit to himself that his knowledge on the subject wasn’t nearly doubled by the observation _that sound_ was involved. Oh, he definitely knew the basic mechanics of it and the biological reason. But it was difficult to picture where precisely the limbs were arranged and at this precise moment that was the last thing he wanted to do. That was largely because he knew if he did, that the faces of Dr. and Mrs. Baker would be superimposed onto the image.

            It wasn’t something he had ever really had anyone to speak to on that subject; his parents had died before he even knew them, and the only relative left to him was his brother how had no interest in educating Adric any time before he reached twenty, and died before he was twelve.

            And Dr. Davison, well, he was a confirmed bachelor. Not in the way that Adric highly suspected Tegan was a confirmed spinster, something deeper and more profoundly separated from any idea of romance. Whereas Tegan might discreetly leave early and if pressured, comment defensively that there was nothing odd about meeting a friend for tea; Adric was reasonably certain that Dr. Davison had never used a bed for anything other than sleeping, nor that he cared to. He would have better luck asking one of Dr. Baker’s cats about it and it would be less uncomfortable for everyone involved.

 

            It occurred to Adric that in imagining this encounter, he had gotten quite distracted and walked right past his own room and into the section of the house he assumed was reserved for family, because on the whole the ornamentation and the furniture was a great deal grander and the dusting was a great deal worse. He gave a quiet groan of frustration at being lost again so quickly after finding his way.

            The stubbornly libidinous part of Adric’s mind kept picturing Nyssa and generally sulked over the interruption. Only now, both Turlough and Tegan had walked in on this scene and were standing at the edge, making commentary. They were, in fact, easier to picture than Nyssa herself, because he had run into another hall hung with portraits, and while their eyes were very much of the Bakers he had met, and their hair curly and full, the shadows covered just enough of their faces that it was only too easy to imagine his siblings looking down at him and laughing at his clumsy attempts to… to what? Woo Nyssa? The phrase itself sounded preposterous, and he could hear Tegan breaking out into laughter as she attempted to say it.

            Turlough, sneering, “You’ve never seen a lady undressed and you never will!”

            Even Nyssa, not mocking but pitying, and that was somehow worse. Nyssa, insisting it was so _flattering_ and _sweet_ that Adric could see all sorts of wonderful things in her she could never see in him. How he was legally her brother, after all, and there was no reason for them to have any other sort of relationship. Suddenly, Varsh was there as well, laughing aloud at the thought that his baby brother could think for a moment he was good for anything that didn’t have a sum at the end.

            But that was impossible, Adric reminded himself, the last scraps of the fantasy falling away and leaving him alone in the dark, dusty hallway. Varsh was dead. Adric had seen him die, Adric had touched his cold, lifeless wrist to check the pulse, Adric had unlatched the belt around his waist and took away the last remembrance he would have of his brother. Unconsciously, the boy touched the belt again, as if checking for the pulse he didn’t find in his brother’s wrist, or his neck, or his chest, all those years ago. Varsh seemed so much older than Adric when he died, but now, permanently seventeen in an unmarked grave on the shore of a country Adric hadn’t set foot on for three years, Adric was struck with the prematurity of his brother’s death.

            “No.” Adric assured himself in a whisper. “Varsh isn’t going to tease you.”

             His voice became distant, and the churning mess of emotions in Adric’s head hit a lump of melancholy that dulled lust and frustration but couldn’t remove them from his head.

            “Varsh isn’t going to tease anyone ever again.” Adric repeated, seeing the hallway around him more clearly than ever. Varsh was dead, and Adric was standing on some dark, cold hallway on the edge of a cliff in the wet, stiff country he had been living in for the past two years. Varsh was a part of his life that was far behind him, Varsh was a memory that the rest of his new family didn’t share, Varsh was _dead_.

            Varsh was standing at the end of the hallway.

 

 

[1] Being described as “useful” by Adric would no doubt result in a very entertaining aghast expression from Nyssa, but this thought did not occur to him. Considering what a bright lad he was, a remarkable amount of thoughts did not occur to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original story outline, this chapter was described as “Adric wanders around the hallways thinking about sex and death”. I never intended that to become an entire chapter but here it is.  
> The painting Adric and Turlough meet in front of is probably not actually Waston and the Shark (1778), but it was definitely what I was thinking of when I wrote that scene.  
> https://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/highlights/highlight46471.html  
> In actual historical fact, Adric should have been moved to long trousers by the time he was eight, but this alternate history has airships, steam powered cars, clockwork robots, and apparently, preteens being dressed and treated like children.  
> The fairground equipment comment is a reference to the Big Finish Audio "The Nightmare Fair".
> 
>  
> 
> This link has the tune to the song Turlough and Adric sing: https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=dss_yset_chr&p=twa+corbies#id=1&vid=cac5d2a9c0fb1f3c1b4d2d907aab2191&action=view


	6. VI.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adric sees a ghost which has no logical reason to be there. A feeling of unease grows with the entire house party.
> 
> Content warning: this chapter includes references to off-screen underage masturbation, several main characters appear injured, and a cat appears to be in danger for a moment. The only lasting damage is a knock on the head.

**_VI._ **

            Of the members of Dr. Baker’s house party, only three of them had managed to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. And of those, only Nyssa and Dr. Davison were sleeping soundly. It is always a trial to fall asleep on a hot summer night, but normally the sound of the rainstorm and cool air it breathed in the windows should have lulled all of them into a comfortable sleep. But this was not the case for Tegan.

            Tegan, her bedclothes kicked off the end of the bed and her nightdress dewy with sweat, turned and whimpered uncomfortably in the majestic four-poster in the purple decorated room. She was in no danger of falling off, in fact the mattress seemed to stretch away from Tegan’s huddled form in endlessly in all directions. Her bare feet tore at the sheets as she attempted to run away from what only existed inside her mind.

            She was having a nightmare.

 

            Her footsteps mixed with her heartbeats as Tegan ran through the halls of Wisteria Bay. The hallway stretched out endlessly before her, curving and narrowing and widening again, but never branching. There was something chasing her, but Tegan didn’t know what it was, only that if she paused to see what was chasing her it would catch her. The hallway grew darker, and darker, such that she could no longer see where it turned and was forced to put her hand against a wall to guide her through the darkness. She hadn’t been stumbling through the blackness long when her hand brushed against something that was somehow both slick and sticky at the same time, and Tegan pulled herself away from the wall in disgust.

            The scene changed suddenly and inexplicably, as dreams do. She didn’t know how she reached this room, but it was quieter, and there was just enough light to see harsh outlines in the dark. Adric and Nyssa were seated on the floor with a chessboard placed between them. Both of them were dressed head to toe in white, making them and the chessboard the only things in the room which were not the same shade of emptiness-between-stars black. There was something wrong with the chessboard. It wasn’t just black and white, there was a pattern of red dashed across it, but Tegan couldn’t make sense of it.

            “Nyssa?” she called, coming closer, “Adric?” Neither of them appeared to have heard her, perhaps because they were so intent on the game. Adric exclaimed in delight and captured Nyssa’s queen. He handed the piece to Nyssa, who smiled pleasantly and accepted it. Now it caught the light—the chess piece had a long, bright silver blade coming out of the bottom, it must have been stabbed into the board before. Nyssa extended her left hand over the board and brought the chess piece-knife towards herself.

            “No, Nyssa, it was the queen.” said Adric. Nyssa appeared to laugh at her mistake, switched the hand she held the knife was held in and delicately cut off her right index finger. Blood splattered across the chessboard, livid red against the black and white squares. Tegan realised with a scream that was the red pattern on the chessboard, splatters of both Adric and Nyssa’s blood. Now she was close enough to see that both of them were missing several fingers on each hand—or rather, that each had claimed some of the other’s and stacked them like firewood at the edge of the chessboard.

 

            Tegan ran from them in terror, trying to not see the neat stack of Nyssa’s fingers when closed her eyes. There was a long hallway with a thousand portraits placed at exactly the same height, and as Tegan ran past them, they almost seemed to move. The heads turned towards her, and without blinking, without scowling, without any change she could put a name to, none of the faces looked human anymore. She didn’t know what else they could be and she didn’t care to know. The hallway widened, but the floor twisted beneath her feet, raising like a steep hill. Tegan stumbled and discovered that the floor and the walls were curving away from where they belonged and the room before her turned like a screw. Now Tegan was falling off of the wall that used to be the floor and onto whatever was down in the new room.

            Tegan landed uncomfortably onto a parquet floor and looked around. This room appeared very much like the dining room in Wisteria Bay, but everything was slightly in the wrong position. As she rose to her feet, she realised this was because a large bay window was placed at the head of the table, looking out on the grey, storm-tossed sea. Dr. Baker stood in front of the window, his back to Tegan as he watched a tiny, paper model of a sailing ship be tossed from wave to wave. He didn’t turn away from the window, but Tegan could see that he was wearing his horrible violet and scarlet dinner suit, folding his arms behind his back.

            He was not alone in the room; a fact that Tegan wanted to take some comfort from but none came. Dr. Davison and Turlough sat across from each other, each of them with a teacup in front of them. While Dr. Davison was sitting stiffly, formally, and drinking his tea, Turlough was sprawled backwards over his chair as if he was asleep.

            Tegan steadied herself and walked towards the table. There was something wrong with Turlough, but she couldn’t place just what it was. His face was in shadow, and for the smallest second, she feared that he had no face at all. She drew closer, but while his mouth came into focus, his eyes didn’t seem to come out of shadow no matter hold close she stood. Tears appeared to stream down his cheeks… no, they were too dark to be tears. With the final step, the smell hit her and Turlough’s face fell into the light. The darkness wasn’t a shadow over his eyes. His eyes had been ripped out of his head like he were a battlefield corpse, staining his face with little rivulets of blood.

            “Turlough!” Tegan exclaimed in horror. Dr. Baker sniffed disapprovingly, rose on his toes and sank back down without turning around.

            “It doesn’t do for young ladies to raise their voices, miss Jovanka.” he scolded, but there was something wrong with his voice. Tegan couldn’t place what it was, but he didn’t sound like himself at all. Perhaps it was deeper, but rougher, like he was speaking from the back of his throat? She wasn’t sure.

            “You’re being so rude to our host.” Dr. Davison scolded, adding sugar to his tea. “Why can’t you be more like Turlough?”

            “I-I think Turlough’s dead!” Tegan exclaimed. Her guardian’s face broke into a grin.

            “Well, _exactly!”_ he crowed.

 

            The room seemed to be spinning, but that could have been the unsettled nature of the dream or the terror of finding Turlough’s corpse sat in a chair at the dinner table. Tegan stumbled forward, trying to turn her fear into anger but that worked so much better when she was awake to do it.

            “What’s happening?” she demanded, but her voice came out in a terrified shriek.

            “Are you afraid of me?” Dr. Baker asked.

             “What—?”

             Dr. Baker turned to face Tegan, but his face was missing—or rather, it wasn’t his face. There was a skull, but the skull of a snake rather than that of a man. Tegan recoiled in horror, and the view shifted. She fell backwards down a long, dark tunnel, but Dr. Baker’s skull was still livid white against the blackness. For a moment, all she could see was a tiny white speck of light at the head of the tunnel. No, it wasn’t a tunnel, but another damned, dark hallway. Tegan threw out her arms to try and catch the edge of a painting and stop the fall. She found herself on her knees, clutching a table leg and her skirt tangling around her limbs. The hallway was a hallway and the floor was a floor.

            The whiteness that had been the skull was getting closer. It wasn’t a skull anymore. A young woman in a long white dress rolled down the hallway towards Tegan. No, not rolled. Floated. Nothing supported her, but she barely brushed the ground. The tips of her boots scraped the wooden floor with a long, sharp noise like nails along a chalkboard. Her head lolled on her shoulders as she moved, like a sleeping person in a chair. As she drew near to Tegan, she recognised the face. The eyes and the teeth were both stained red as if she had just been tearing apart meat with her mouth. And as if eyes were nothing but mouths with duller teeth. Other than that, and the expression of utter cruelty, it was the most familiar face in the entire dream. It was her own.

            _“Are you afraid of me?”_ the other Tegan laughed through her red teeth.

 

            She was in the bleak purple bedroom she had been sleeping in since the holiday started, sitting up and clammy with sweat. And there, at the foot of the bed, was a silent figure, dressed all in black. She could not see their face, it was difficult to see them at all in the dark because they were dressed head to toe in black. If it hadn’t been for the head of blond curls, she might not have seen them at all. Tegan started and choked on the dozen terrified insults she would have normally spewed at the figure, paralyzed by sheer confusion and fear.

            “Are you afraid of me?” asked a quiet, sing-song voice. The voice of a child.

            The figure raised a thin, short blade—and Tegan felt herself sit up in bed and scream in terror. The figure was gone. Perhaps it was better to say it had never been there at all. She breathed deeply and touched her chest. Looking around, the guest bedroom was large and ominous but quite empty. Not even a cat was in the room with her. Tegan sighed with exhaustion and dropped her head back onto her pillow.

            It had happened dozens of times before, she would think that she had awoken from a nightmare, only to dream of herself getting out of bed and wake again. Once she dreamt of waking three times in a row. The addition of the dark figure at the end of her bed was a frightening addition, but, Tegan thought, looking at the distant bed curtains, hardly surprising in the setting.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

 

            The loss of a loved one is always painful in itself, but some of the least painful experiences of grief are by the fact they are unpainful painful in an entirely different way.

            Some who have not yet experienced it might think that reassuring yourself that the two of you hadn’t had the best relationship when they died would be some small comfort. This is nonsense. Many a widow will burst into tears years after her husband’s death, hating herself for failing to resolve the last argument they had with their husband before he died. No matter how trivial, it will take on a new importance by the circumstance. “That was the porcelain pug that he said was the ugliest thing in our house on the day he died. I can’t stand to look at it, because it reminds me of the fight, but I can’t stand to throw it away for the exact same reason.”

            The worst part, at least in Adric’s experience, was the way that time wore away the details of the person until you did not remember what they were like so much as the fact they existed. No matter how close, details of the deceased life would fall out of one’s mind in time. Sometime after Varsh’s death, Adric had found that he did not feel brotherly love for his deceased family member but merely remembered that the brotherly love that once existed between them was the first of any sort of love he had experienced. More than that, he didn’t remember a hundred little things one notices about someone close to them, even if one is a bit self-centred even for a child.

            More shocking than forgetting these things, however, was how quickly they could be recalled with the correct stimulus. For example, Adric could very easily picture and recognise how Varsh’s hair looked from the back, how he stood slightly crookedly when he thought he wasn’t being watched, the way that his school uniform was as badly fitted as Adric’s was now when Adric’s had fitted him quite well. The way Varsh’s shoulders rose and fell slightly as he breathed. All he needed to do to remember all of this was to see him standing, dimly lit but clearly visible at the end of the hallway. His back was to Adric, but there was no way he could mistake him, every detail Adric recalled was sharply visible as soon as he remembered them.

            A small, choked noise broke the silence of the hallway, and for a moment Adric didn’t realise it was his own voice.

            “Varsh?”

            Varsh turned his head slightly, showing the faintest sliver of his face. He was as pale as he had been when Adric drew away from his lifeless body collapsed on the bare boards of the shipyard. Perhaps even paler, it was hard to make out colour in this dim light. The smallest suggestion of a smile was visible, and then Varsh turned his face back into the darkness and began to walk away.

            “Varsh!” Adric repeated, much louder this time. He broke into a run and tore down the hallway after his brother. There was a laugh, very clearly in Varsh’s voice, but it sounded strange and echoic, like it had not come from his brother at all, but from the entire hallway. Just as Adric was close enough to Varsh to see the seams in his clothing, he began to run twice as fast as Adric could, faster than Adric had ever seen Varsh run before. Adric strained after him, clutching a wall as he turned a corner. Varsh laughed again, dashing up a series of steps, Adric ran after them, knocking a silver vase full of dried roses to the ground with a sickly crunch as the stems were crushed by the vase. Adric paid it no heed, he was on the steps now. Varsh was at the top of the stairs, close enough for Adric to touch, just nearly there—and then, Adric’s foot caught the edge of the last stair and he tumbled face-first into an exceptionally dusty carpet.

 

            The boy pushed his face off of the carpet, choking heavily on the dust. Despite having more experience falling on his face than he would like, Adric had never before considered the possibility that one might be able to date the dust on the ground by the way it tasted. Now, as he pulled himself onto his knees, coughing heavily, he would have been confident to say that the dust he had landed in was _at least_ as old as he was.

            Once he’d stopped coughing enough to open his eyes, Adric looked around where he had landed. The landing was empty, except for a few artistic pieces. The main focus was a painting larger than a vanity mirror but smaller than many of the landscapes he had passed in an earlier hallway. The painting was of a small boy—well, not much smaller than Adric, but small—wearing what to Adric’s eye looked a little piratical. There were a lot of buttons, a high, wide collar, and his breeches were tucked into his boots. All of these were in the darkest black, which was a stark contrast to the mop of blonde curls and pale skin nearly half of the portraits in this house sported. Like many paintings of this era, he was surrounded by small items that were probably meant to be symbolic, such as a small whippet lying by the boy’s feet but staring at him with the sincerest distress and the handle of what was probably a toy from that period, guessing by his age, but looked for all the world like he was hiding a knife behind his leg. But, by far, the most singular aspect of the painting was a band of black cloth covering the boy’s left eye. Which was perhaps why Adric thought he looked so much like a pirate, he was quite aware that there were far more eye patches in stories about pirates than on actual pirates, but something in the wide collar and eye patch spoke to Adric’s idea of what a pirate looked like. The uncovered eye was hardly helping the painting’s atmosphere; it was sharply staring out in such a way that looked like he was not only watching the viewer, but also delighting in thinking of nasty things to do to them.

            Other than the painting itself, there was little else on the landing. Three suits of armour, two to the right of the painting and one to the left. Most noticeably, Varsh wasn’t there. Adric brushed some hair away from his face. This didn’t make the least sense, dead brothers didn’t simply appear and disappear at will, even if he entertained the idea that this house was haunted—which was absurd, no matter how many members of his family thought they saw a ghost—then surely the ghosts haunting it would only be people who had either lived or died in the house. Adric didn’t know much about ghosts, but he didn’t imagine that they would follow people around hoping to be recognised instead of staying wherever they intended to haunt. Then again, Adric mused, as he didn’t believe in them he’d never made any sort of study on the subject.

            Just then, something gently brushed against Adric’s legs. Like anyone staring at an eerie portrait and wondering whether or not ghosts exist, Adric let out a small shriek of terror and jumped half a foot.

            This offended the cat.

            Adric rammed his hands angrily into his pockets and felt very thankful no one but the cat saw that. The boy crouched down and clicked his tongue at the cat, who in turn continued to look slightly offended but didn’t move any further away. Adric put out his hand for inspection, clicked his tongue again and made a noise not unlike a purr. The cat sniffed his fingers, licked them twice to be sure they really were fingers, and then butted its head against Adric’s hand. Adric then petted the animal’s head and shoulders, and, as cats will, the cat decided that Adric had not offended him in the slightest and was, in fact, their very dearest friend so long as the petting continued.

 _Cats_ he understood. If getting people to like him was half so easy as getting a cat to do it, Adric would be living a far different life than the one he was. The cat purred loudly and wound themselves around Adric’s ankles. It was only now that he was listening for the purr of the cat that Adric noticed how much louder the rain sounded than it did when he was in the hallway. He looked around. If there was enough light in this hallway for him to make out the details of the painting, there had to be a window somewhere near. That was probably where the sound of the rain was coming from, and it might help him to orientate himself and _finally_ find his room. The cat realised Adric had stopped petting them and stalked off with their tail in the air. Adric pulled himself to his feet and wandered in the direction of the noise.

 

            At first, Adric thought that the hallway seemed even darker than it had before, then there was a flash of brilliant white light in front of him, silhouetting the cat against glowing whiteness for a second. When the light faded with the rumble of thunder, Adric could see rain lashing against tall windows and a glass door, leading out to an only-slightly flooded balcony. He didn’t think much of the idea of going out into the wet and cold, but he was sure it would be easier to orientate himself if he just had a look at the house from the outside. Reluctantly, the boy stepped out into the rain.

            The cat dashed impatiently to the edge of the balcony, shaking raindrops from its tail and it went. Then the animal looked over its shoulder at Adric, coiled up its body, and jumped off of the edge.

            “Wait!” Adric shouted though he didn’t suppose the cat would have heard him over the storm even if it did understand English. Without thinking he dashed out into the rain, not stopping until the railing hit him hard in the stomach.

            Adric leaned over the edge of the balcony and looked down. The cat looked back up at him. There was a second balcony under the one he was standing on, protruding slightly more from the house than the higher one. A faint light came from the house as if someone had left a gas-lamp lit in their bedroom. Which reminded Adric that _he_ had done so. He was now scarce metres from his own, dry warm bed. If only those metres were to the left, not directly down. Adric looked back into the dry, dark hallway behind him. Perhaps, he might be able to trace his way back in this direction once he had found a stairway and gown down a floor.

            Below him, the cat meowed impatiently and ran out of Adric’s line of sight, presumably into the room below. Adric looked out at the rain-lashed moor, and it struck him how miserable and lonely it all looked. The very edge of the cliff was just visible to the far right of Adric’s vision, but even that was just a slightly darker patch of black in the loud, wet night. It was somehow brighter than it was inside but still just different shades of black arranged into a sad, black puddle of foreboding shadows. The rain made the blackness glossy, like the entire world had been dipped in pitch.

            Adric wanted none of it, he had seen too much of this wretched place, eerie portraits and phantoms and cats who knew too much, the black damp of the world around him was more than he could bear on top of everything else. All he wanted was this night to be over.

            The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a two-Ore piece he had carried with him since he started school. He ran his thumb along the edge of the coin thoughtfully. Adric didn’t keep many souvenirs from his life before meeting Dr. Davison, but the coin had a practical use. When faced with a choice between two things that seemed equally unappealing; like sitting next to Tegan or Turlough, or going back inside to try and find his way to exactly this spot but one floor down, Adric liked to let chance decide. He flipped the coin in the air and caught it on the back of his palm. It came up tails. He was going to climb over the edge of the balcony.

            Adric looked down. This would be a very convenient time to discover that Dr. Baker’s brother had left one of his scarves around. Lacking a makeshift rope, Adric leaned over the balcony and considered his chances. All he really had to do is fall off of the balcony, Adric reasoned. He was quite good at falling, he didn’t even need anything so fancy as a balcony to fall off of. And anyway, he did need to close that window before any more of the rain blew into his bedroom. Part of his mind absolutely appalled at what he was doing, Adric flung one leg over the balcony, doing some simple calculations in his head.

            The height of the average storey was roughly 1.981 metres, so it would follow that if a man the height of say, Dr. Davison, 1.836, or Dr. Baker, roughly 1.828 metres, defenestrated themselves from a second story window on an average house, lowering themselves as far as possible before dropping, they would only fall either 14.5 centimetres or 15.3 centimetres, and that would easily be covered by the fact the arms would be lowering them down. He was sure he’d read somewhere that the length of the arms fingertip to fingertip was the same as the height, so he’d get half again that much, ninety-one point eight centimetres or ninety-one point four centimetres comfortably spanning that last 14.5 to 15.3 centimetre gap. If Dr. Davison had lowed himself out of a second story window on a normal house in this way, he would have needed to drop less than half a metre. Perfectly safe. All these calculations were done before Adric’s foot touched the opposite side of the railing.

            He thought of nothing but holding onto the wet railing until he had his second leg over and was merely clinging to the wrong side of the balustrade when Adric remembered how large and grand the house at Wisteria Bay was. Adric wasn’t a tall lad by any measurement, still so easy to be mistaken for and treated like a child. Adric knew that all too well. And Wisteria Bay’s ceilings were high, making for plenty of overtall walls to drop short teenagers off of. These ceilings were anywhere between 3.962 and 4.645 metres tall, and that wasn’t even counting the floors. The trouble was Adric was 1.655 metres tall (2.4825 metres with his arms stretched out over his head, no, cut off halfway through his torso and attached to the top of his head! Why had he considered this at all?) and this gave him at least 2.307 metres to fall, hoping to land straight down and not half a metre in either direction, assuming he could lower himself down which now seemed totally impossible.

            Gripping tight onto the wet, slippery iron, the full idiocy of what Adric was doing struck him. His breathing became rapid and shallow, his knuckles white on the black iron and his boots trembled on the narrow ledge, trying to work their way in between railings just barely too tight to fit them. His hair stuck to his face as he looked around and wondered if anyone would even hear him over the thunder if he called for help. Almost certainly not. His breath caught in his throat. No one would hear him if he screamed as he fell, either.

            His eyes raked the building, hoping to see a lighted window other than the one below him, someone who might hear him, anything but grim dark shingles and rivulets of rainwater thundering down them. A few rough shapes lined the wall above him, little outcroppings of decorations between storeys like tiny gargoyles. The nearest one caught his eye, some large black bird, probably a raven but Adric would need a closer look to be sure and that was the last thing on his mind at the moment. It was rough-hewn, ugly, and the water running down it made it look as if it was in the process of being worn away to nothing. Leave it to the damn Bakers to have such a gothic ordainment randomly on a second empire house. As if sensing his disapproval, the bird turned its head and looked directly at Adric.

            “ _Die!”_ it squawked harshly, and with a scream, Adric lost his grip on the railing.

 

            Something very odd happened to Adric as he dropped that all-important two metres. All of his terror, everything he had seen that night just turned into exhaustion. He didn’t even think he was going to die, which would have been perfectly possible if he veered a metre away from the building, but rather that he didn’t care much either way anymore. It was better than running around this stupid house.

            He lay on the tiled floor of the balcony, arms and legs outstretched, sore and probably bruised but otherwise uninjured and no longer registering any of the terror he had felt over the course of the night. All that happened was that his cap fell off and was lying near his left hand. He tried to reassure himself that his plan had worked perfectly and he was terribly clever for thinking of it, but it was far harder to believe that line of thought than it usually was for some reason.

            It was probably that stupid raven. Of course he knew people could teach ravens to talk, and of course, they liked to teach them ominous words since they were such ominous birds. What else would the bird learn living around his miserable house? Adric sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head. He was cold and wet and sore, and to top it all off, he realised with a sigh, not only were the lights on in his room, but he had left the door to the balcony unlatched and the wind had blown it all the way open. A dark semicircle of rain spread in through the doorway, staining the edge of the rug.

            He stood up, picked up his hat, and pulled himself inside, latching the door behind him. The one lit gas-lamp in the corner made the whole room seem brilliantly lit compared to the dusty hallways he’d been lost in for the last two hours. It probably wasn’t actually that long, but Adric felt like he had been wandering the damn corridors for a year.

 _Ah yes, that was it_. he thought grimly. _I died falling off of that bloody stupid balcony and I’ve been a ghost wandering around the hallways for years, reliving my last night of complete frustration._ That he knew was ridiculous. Ghosts, if he allowed himself to think they existed at all, did not have sore heads after falling onto a balcony.

            Everything in his room was the same as how he had left it that morning, except for the damp patch of carpet and the cat sitting on the chair which he’d draped his other set of clothes over, cleaning the rainwater off itself diligently. Adric stripped off his wet tunic and dropped it in the middle of the floor. The cap was somewhere beneath it. His boots squelched like he was walking in mud as he crossed the room to turn off the gas-lamp. With one hand on the edge of the chair, Adric caught sight of his reflection in a wall mirror. His chest looked even scrawnier and paler in the dim light than usual. He looked down at himself and considered what sort of body he should expect to have at fifteen, then turned off the lamp with a disgusted sigh. If he was becoming a man, then his body had gotten the message terribly garbled and decided it was best to try and look like some sickly sort of bean-sprout instead.

            Adric sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his sodden boots and socks, forcing them off without bothering to untie them first. He tossed the first one as far across the room as he could manage, which annoyed the cat almost enough to make it look at him, so he just dropped the other beside the bed. His hand fell back to support him as his pulled off a stubbornly wet and clingy sock, and discovered something hard and square had been left in the middle of his bed.

            Adric turned around slightly, trying to angle what he had found into a shaft of dim moonlight that could just make it past the storm. It was a book, small and covered with blue cloth. It bore no title on its cover or spine. Someone had written a note on unlined paper and tucked it between the flyleaf and the cover so that the edge would be just visible. That edge had his name. Adric pulled out the note and read in what he recognised as Nyssa’s handwriting:

 

_Dear Adric,_

_I found this book in the library and it seems like it might answer some of my questions, but it only raises more. There’s a section I want to discuss with you. I meant to talk to you but I found your room empty. Please find me when you get up tomorrow. There’s more that I can’t write down._

_Love, Nyssa_

            Signing off a letter with “Love” meant nothing, Adric reminded himself crossly, but the addition of the phrase “more that I can’t write down” and “love” together flushed his cheeks with hope. He moved the note to his bedside table and checked the title page.

_Our Family History, 1760-1840 by P. Baker_

            Before he could put much thought into that, Adric noticed the wet patch his trousers were leaving on the foot of the bed and removed them as well. It was chill for a summer night, and he immediately wriggled into the driest part of the bed.

            Adric pulled the bedcurtains closed. He was quite sure that the cat was asleep, but even that made him feel more alone and secure. Perfectly alone except for his own thoughts and warmed by Nyssa’s words in the letter and the memory of her sleeping in that shaft of moonlight, Adric took his time in lulling himself to sleep in a manner he would never had explored if he was still sharing a room with Turlough.

            Other boys at school, being fifteen-year-old boys, would go so far as to boast about this sort of thing. He could certainly _consider_ the matter. In as great a detail as he fancied. Adric had rarely considered the subject of physical relationships at all, but now that he had a certain amount of privacy and an inspiring setting he found himself rather wondering if it would not have been better that he had _continued_ not thinking about them.

            First the uncomfortable feeling of being distracted by Mrs. Baker’s bosom, then the totally unwanted discovery of precisely what an old man… _being married_ with his young wife sounded like. Adric had no way of knowing if this was true of all women, but he took great time and care in considering whether it would be true of Nyssa. And by the time he had fallen asleep, he had reached no conclusion despite examining the possibility from several angles.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            After the persistent storm the night before, morning broke with a bright crimson sky reflected in calm water beneath the cliffs. Bands of light striped the master bedroom, carefully creeping up toward the faces of the slumbering hosts. Peri wrinkled her nose and buried her face in her husband’s chest in a stubborn refusal to wake. A gentle hand moving through her hair both soothed her and brought her slightly more into consciousness.

            Being in a bed was quite one of the finest things in the world, Dr. Baker thought. To be surrounded entirely by the soft warmth of blankets and featherbeds, and most importantly, his wife. He smiled contentedly at the ceiling, purring like a cat.

            “Still asleep?” he asked softly.

            “Yes.”

            “Me too.” he smiled. Now that he was on vacation, no one was going to chase him out of bed. At least, so he thought. As he closed his eyes to start dosing again, a distant but unmistakable sound of rhythmic counting reached his ears. He tried to tune it out but the volume increased slowly but steadily, as the source grew closer to the windows.

            “Is that..?” Peri asked, picking up her head.

            “Where does he get the energy?” Dr. Baker yawned.

            The first day he heard Dr. Davison taking a pre-jentacular constitutional around the grounds, Dr. Baker found it very amusing that anyone would exert themselves in such a way on their vacation. He had not expected his guest to do so every day. It perhaps would not have been so irritating had he not counted to himself as he did so, or if he did not attempt to conscribe other members of the party into doing the same. He had no success whatsoever in this. But the chanting from the windows was as distinct as the sunlight coming from the same and generated a level of annoyance just too strong to sleep through. Reluctantly, Dr. Baker sat up in bed. Peri rolled onto her side to look at him better.

            “Don’t.” she warned.

            “Don’t what, my dear?”

            “Don’t shout at him out the window.” said Peri. “It’s too early for you to be that loud.”

            “I wasn’t going to shout at him!” Dr. Baker shouted. Peri winced. He ran a hand through his curls and began to sheepishly toy with a lock behind his ear. “I was going to throw something.” Peri laughed quietly and pulled one of the pillows closer. He gazed upon her and smiled contentedly.

            “What’re you staring at?” Peri asked.

            “My universe.” he replied quietly.

            “Don’t embarrass me.” she giggled, sitting up.

            “I’m afraid that you’re going to have my love until the day I die, so perhaps you ought to get used to it.” the fair-haired man said matter-of-factly. “I find that I am doomed to love anyone who can find it in their hearts to not worship my brother.”

            “He’s not so bad… just, you know, a little pompous and self-impressed, irritating...” Peri wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck. “You know, family traits.”

            “Yes.” Dr. Baker laughed, touching his forehead to hers. “Now aren’t you glad you don’t have a brood of little Bakers to deal with yourself?” He attempted to go in for a kiss after that, but Peri turned her head away. Staring into the middle distance, she rested her head on his chest and didn’t answer.

            “Peri?” he asked, his voice rising slightly with concern. “Peri, what’s wrong?” Dr. Baker ran a hand over his wife’s hair and sighed.

            “I am sorry, my dear. I know that you have a much warmer opinion of children than I do. It’s not that I object to them as such, but I can hardly imagine them as a fixture in my own life. But I should have thought that this house party would have altered your opinion on the matter somewhat.” He made a noise halfway between a sigh and a bitter laugh. “Perhaps I hoped. At my age, it’s quite unlikely that I’ll be siring _anything_ , much less a charming bundle of joy. Still, you’re young yet. A good deal younger than I, and I imagine whatever ingenious accident carries me off it will put quite the prettiest and richest young widow back on the market, as it were.”

            “Don’t even joke about that.” she snapped, pulling her head up.

 

            Frowning, Peri threw the blankets off her legs and all but jumped out of the bed. Fishing the peignoir she’d abandoned off the ground with her foot, there was only the briefest glance of her naked body before she covered it and stormed over to her vanity table.

            “What?” Dr. Baker asked. Peri didn’t answer, she didn’t even turn back. She sat down and stared past her mirror and into nothingness, frowning furiously.

            “Peri, what’s the matter?” he insisted. It was quite frightening for him when she didn’t speak. There had been very few instances of her not shouting exactly what she thought at him whenever something displeased her. When she stopped fighting, it was because she didn’t think there was anything left to be said, no point of saying it.

            And now, Peri kept brushing her hair and said nothing.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            The breakfast table was icily quiet that morning, despite the entire party being gathered there. After last night’s adventures, Adric found himself only able to look at Dr. Davison, Tegan, or his food without blushing profusely. He spent most of the time focusing on his food because it wasn’t going to ask him what he was so agitated about. He looked _precisely_ like a young man who had spent the previous evening seeing ghosts, following cats off of balconies, and masturbating, and was quietly mortified at the idea that anyone else at the table had the slightest idea what that looked like. The thought that Dr. Baker had a brother and one of them might have seen a similar expression on the other’s face over breakfast prompted Adric to attempt to empty his mind of anything except how odd it was that human beings ate chicken eggs and wondering how was the brave soul to first attempt it. More importantly, who was the clever soul who added, “That might be more pleasant if you submerged it in boiling water first.”

            Now he was learning how mortifying it was to be faced with the living counterpart to your fantasies the next morning. This entire trip was making Adric wish that his burgeoning sexuality would burgeon right back to wherever it had come from. The fact that when his gaze did not fall on Nyssa it veered towards Mrs. Baker or her husband did not help at all. The phrase “heaving bosom” occurred to Adric, and he rather wished it hadn’t. He had heard it said at one point that one buys every pleasure in their life with a corresponding pain, and if he had been asked last night he would have thought his trials before going to bed bought any joy he took once he found it, but now, sat at breakfast with his entire adopted family Adric discovered that minor pleasure still had a hefty account to settle.

 

            Tegan glanced at Peri, but found she was icily looking at the coffee-pot, which also happened to be as far away she could be turned from her husband without leaving the table. Usually it fell to one of them to break the silence at meals, and clearly Peri had no intention of doing so today. Tegan cleared her throat and addressed the other woman.

            “I noticed there were some penny-fliers in the stables, and I was wondering if we might borrow them for a…” Tegan searched for an appropriate phrase, and all that came to mind was how her guardian would likely describe it. “…a bit of a jaunt, now that there’s actually pleasant weather outside.”

            “I don’t see why not.” said Mrs. Baker. She looked at her husband for the first time since she sat down. Dr. Baker cocked his eyebrow, his expression still somewhat frightened: the silent sign of a husband who still didn’t know what he had done to upset his wife being afraid to ask if he was forgiven for the moment. He didn’t get an answer out of her before she turned her attention back to Tegan.

            “Do you have a riding habit?” Peri asked, “I mean, did you _bring_ a riding habit? I’ve got one you could borrow. I think I’ve worn it all of twice; I’m terrible at bicycling even when it’s firmly on the ground. You aren’t too much taller than I am…”

            “I was going to wear my conductorette uniform.” said Tegan.

            “If you can bicycle in a skirt that narrow, you’re a better woman than I.” Peri rolled her eyes.

            “Well, I wasn’t going to say it.” said Dr. Baker to his colleague. If looks could kill, the table would have witnessed a matricide. Adric put all that remained of his soft-boiled egg in his mouth at once in the fear that someone might expect him to say something.

            “Come, my dear,” said Dr. Baker. “You know as well as I you have enough trouble staying upright when both feet are on the ground.”

            “If we both know it, you don’t need to say it.” Peri replied sharply.

            “If those things can’t have been used for that long, I’d best look over them.” Dr. Davison jumped into the conversation, coughing nervously.

            “I think Tom’s used one or two of them the last time he was here.” said Dr. Baker.

            “Yes, but I’d still rather have a look before I send anyone up into the air on one.”

            “That’s what I meant. Tom can’t help but fiddle with things. He always insists he can fix anything that’s broken. More often than not if it isn’t broken, he fixes that too.” Dr. Baker and Dr. Davison shared what had probably been the most genuine smile they had since the holiday started. They’d both had to work with Dr. Baker’s brother at the academy, which mostly consisted of Thomas taking control of and credit for the project in one project in one fell swoop. Dr. Davison refilled his tea and glanced around the table.

            “Not to speak too soon, but if I get a start on the penny-flyers straight after breakfast, we could probably take advantage of the clear weather this afternoon.”

            “Perhaps we might even persuade Mrs. Smythe to fill a hamper and make a picnic of it.” Nyssa suggested. Adric visibly perked up at this suggestion as if he hadn’t had a bite in days, despite the fact he was eating at that very moment.

            “Well, I hope you have fun.” Peri snarled, rising from the table. “I’m staying inside.”

            “Peri, sit down!” Dr. Baker snapped. Tegan and Nyssa glanced at each other, the same glance that they shared whenever Adric or Turlough started arguing with their guardian[1], which was now getting twice as many airings now that they were present for the Baker’s version of domestic bliss.

            “Was that an _order?”_ Peri hissed.

            “I don’t know. Was it going to be followed?”

            “What do you think?” she retorted with her unique blend of fury and sarcasm.

            “What do I think? I think you’re impossible to please!” he snapped. “You nag on and on about how we’re hardly being suitable hosts and the moment we decide to something enjoyable you’re excusing yourself from it.”

            “Fine.” Peri grumbled, returning to her seat. “I’ll finish breakfast and I’ll go outside, but I’m not going riding. I’ll read under a tree and spot the rest of you in case someone falls.”

            “If there’s no objection, I’ll join Mrs. Baker.” offered Turlough. “I’m no good on a bicycle even if hasn’t any wings.”

            “Thank you, Turlough. I think I’d like that.” Peri answered, still frowning. She shot a venomous glance at Dr. Baker, who frowned at her and tried to figure out the most spiteful way to tuck into his toast. Turlough privately hoped that he wasn’t about to be used in any ploy to annoy Peri’s husband, as much as he appreciated annoying people and while he was far closer to her age than Dr. Baker was, that would have been barking in an entirely different orchard, let alone up the right tree.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            Despite Dr. Baker’s doubt in his brother’s mechanical skill, the penny-fliers were in excellent condition, the wings’ canvas as tight as a drum and the gears shining and well-oiled. Dr. Davison had to admit that he was impressed, not because he doubted Thomas’ mechanical skill, but in the entire time they had been colleagues he had never known the man to turn his hand to anything as practical as a bicycle. He wasn’t about to try and discredit him, however, as he was by far the most popular professor at Transcendental Academy and a member in excellent standing of the same club Dr. Davison and Dr. Baker met in. It was wiser, not to mention politer, for Dr. Davison not to speak of Dr. Thomas Baker as little as possible, and he was known for being both of those things.

            Dr. Davison wiped his hands on a rag again, even though he was fairly sure that he had gotten them clean on the last pass. He had kept his suit cream coloured until this point without worrying about it that much, but now that he was seeing Dr. Baker on a daily basis he had become more aware of the fact he was running around a dusty old house in what was essentially a canvas for stains.

            The few weeks that he had spent with the Bakers had proven to him that Dr. Baker’s idea of good manners was to point out any spots on someone else’s suit as soon as he noticed them so that they could be addressed as soon as possible. It must have come from having enough clothes to be able to change them as soon as he noticed a speck of dirt. Dr. Davison was privately amazed that someone could be that much of a dandy and still end up looking like _that._

 

            As Dr. Davison considered fashion in more detail than he had felt necessary before in his entire life, he made his way out of the carriage-house, through the narrow passageway and back into the east hallway. He would not have put it in the same words as Nyssa chose, but there was a distinct change in mood when he moved into the house proper. It was probably more a matter of the quality of light and circulation of air than echoes of the angry dead, Dr. Davison supposed, but he felt positively relieved every time he left the house and a slight but distinct feeling of dread the moment he stepped back inside.

            Dr. Davison considered himself more spiritual than many of his colleagues. For example, he had some academic interest in precisely what the soul _was_ and how it related to the physical form. He knew from bringing it up at the club that many of the other members of the Society had a very dim view of religion as a whole, but he himself was far from closed to the idea. He even had done a small amount of religious study, but with everything else that interested him, Dr. Davison had never pursued it particularly far. Between his studies of the physical form, mechanics, flight, and his duties at Transcendental Academy, Dr. Davison found himself unable to do much else other than care for his wards. Something had to be dropped from his schedule, and he felt no particular regret at it being ecclesiastical. But belief in the existence of his own soul was hardly the same thing as the belief in ghosts.

            Breaking out of his reverie, Dr. Davison saw a decorative mirror set above a pot of flowers at the end of the hallway. He was just close enough to see his own reflection, a streak of cream against the dark purple wallpaper. Behind him, he saw the lower body of a woman in a long black dress walking some distance behind him. His face twisted into a polite smile, he was not entirely sure where he was and a maid would know more about the layout of the house than anyone. She could probably direct him back to the study, where he could surely find _someone_ to conscript into a pleasant afternoon ride.

            He turned around, but the woman had already moved. He wasn’t sure where she would have gone, there were a few doors but she had appeared to be so close to him in the mirror. The professor found himself checking the mirror again, as if the maid would be reflected where she clearly was not but only his own impassively puzzled face greeted him.

            Dr. Davison frowned at himself. He was being silly, wondering at the use of a soul at all, much less after death, because he had seen the reflection of a maid. There were more than enough people acting silly and frightened already, he didn’t need to add to their number. He didn’t know if it was just the servants at this particular house, but they always appeared to be about until you had something to ask one of them. Far too much like his children in that respect. Dr. Davison was far more interested in finding the latter to wonder long about the former, and soon forget about the maid in the mirror entirely.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            The smell of salt off of the sea and the sunlight in his hair burned off any apprehension the young professor had felt earlier like a morning mist. Finally, there was something about this holiday that Dr. Davison was unreservedly enjoying. He pumped the pedals and turned his penny-flyer into the breeze. This is what summer was _for_.

            He wheeled the winged bicycle through the air, turning towards where Tegan was circling higher and higher into the sky. He gave his horn a cheery honk and waved to his ward.

            “Care for a race, Tegan?” Dr. Davison called.

            “Sure, it will be nice to beat someone who isn’t such a sore loser!” Tegan laughed, pulling her penny-flyer even with his. Tegan had fitted herself into Peri’s riding habit without much trouble, the bodice was probably less fitted than when Peri wore it and more of her gaiters were visible under the brilliantly azure skirt. Nyssa flitted delicately above the waves; Adric, safely on the ground, personally thought there was something nymph-like in the flashes of her brightly striped lawn dress flashing above the foam, whereas Peri thought that striped dress looked like it was made out the fabric off of deck chairs. Dr. Baker circled above the rest of the riding party like a large, brightly coloured vulture.

 

            Three folding canvas chairs were arranged under a large beach umbrella on the edge of the sea. Peri was comfortably tucked into the first, deeply engrossed in cloth-covered book. Adric was trying not to watch Nyssa too obviously, chewing slowly on a yellow apple he’d stolen from the lunch basket. Turlough had tried to engage both of them in conversation, without much luck. Frankly, he thought Adric looked ready to fall asleep in his chair. Turlough smiled awkwardly and redoubled his efforts.

            “Are you asleep?” Turlough asked. Adric flashed the other boy a surly expression and held up the apple instead of answering.

            “If anyone could eat in their sleep, it would be you.” Turlough replied with a wry smile. Adric frowned and tried to chew louder. Turlough saw the hint that Adric was trying to give him and ignored it.

            “Out of curiosity, did you ever make it to your own room? Did you get any sleep at all last night?” asked Turlough. A faint pink rose in Adric’s cheeks.

            “Those are two different questions.” he muttered quietly.

            “Oh, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, we all already knew you couldn’t find your way out of a room with one door.” Turlough said cheerily.

            “I found my room alright, Turlough!” Adric snapped, pulling in his knees. “Leave me alone!”

            “But did you sleep alright?” Turlough asked with mock concern. “I know you’re not used to sleeping alone. Should I have stayed with you and tucked you in?”

            “Shut up, Turlough.”

            “Or did you tuck yourself in?”

            “Why do _you_ want to know what I did when I was alone?” Adric asked sharply. “Why can’t we just appreciate that we didn’t have to hear the other fall asleep for once? I know I do.”

            “If this is your way of telling me that I snore, you certainly have left it some time.”

            “It’s not the snoring I was worried about.” Adric grumbled.

            “What _else_ would I have heard?” asked Turlough. “Should I be worried?”

            “Don’t ask that like you don’t know.” Adric grumbled.

            “Oh Adric, I’m disappointed.” Turlough chided. “I leave you alone for one night and you fall into moral degradation.”

            “I was hardly likely to… “ Adric flushed a bright red that clashed horribly with his uniform. “…to shine my maths badge when _you_ were in the room!”

            Turlough raised an eyebrow airily.

            “However _did_ you make it through boarding school?”

            “I ate all the biscuits before anyone could think to make a game of it, that’s how.” Adric snapped, blushing furiously. Peri lowered her book and turned her head slowly towards the two boys.

            “I’d remind you there’s a lady present but you might get worse.” she commented.

            “It’s quite alright, Mrs. Baker.” said Turlough with a smile. “It’s probably best for all of us if you focus on your book. A lady like yourself wouldn’t want to hear the conversation of crass little boys like us.”

            Peri rose one eyebrow.

            “Do you really think I don’t know what you’re talking about? I’m married.” Peri muttered into her book. “You’d have to be _pretty diligent_ masturbators for either of you to know more about sex then I do.”

            Both boys turned bright red and fell silent.

 

            The worst part, for Adric at least, was that he already knew that. In far more detail than he wanted. Now he couldn’t look at Turlough _or_ Peri. He stood up and stormed away from the umbrella, sticking both of his hands into his pockets. Adric kicked a small rock across the beach, immediately wishing that he had kicked a somewhat smaller rock, but continuing to kick the first one in case someone was watching him sulk.

 

            A moment later, one of the penny-fliers lighted down beside the beach umbrella. Nyssa carefully moved her flying goggles to the top of her head and put down the kickstand on the bicycle, but she was looking at Turlough the entire time.

            “What’s wrong with Adric?” asked Nyssa.

            “You want a list?” asked Peri automatically. Nyssa sighed and looked over her shoulder at Adric. She knew she wasn’t going to get a better answer out of Turlough, or Adric for that matter, but she felt she had to try.

            “He was behaving oddly at breakfast…”

            “How can you tell?” Turlough asked innocently. Nyssa sighed, but she knew that at least she would get the story out of Adric, and probably at tedious length. But, she thought, watching him kick a rock and hop on the opposite foot in evident discomfort, he probably needed someone to complain to, or he’d just work himself into a fury. She abandoned her bicycle and hurried down the beach after Adric.

 

            Turlough and Peri barely had a moment to become bored with watching Nyssa chase Adric down before a second bicycle landed beside the first. Tegan was astride it, and the set of her mouth suggested she was cross. Exposing her eyes by moving her goggles to the top of her head only increased this expression, and faced with it Turlough could only assume one of Tegan’s famous shouting fits was about to take place.

            “Don’t you start!” he frowned.

            “Start what?” asked Tegan, securing her goggles in place. “I saw Adric coming out of the shade and thought that it was time for lunch.” Turlough stood up and stepped out from under the umbrella, drawing slightly closer to Tegan than she would have liked.

            “Adric is having one of his _moods,_ ” Turlough said significantly. “I can’t imagine what set him off this time.”

            “I can.” Tegan replied, narrowing her eyes at Turlough. “The two of you are usually so eager to sweeten yourselves to whatever loon is trying to kill Dr. Davison at any given moment, maybe you should try to sweeten yourselves to each other sometime.”

            “That isn’t the same thing at all, as well you know. Besides…” he added quietly. “It looks to me like he’s sweetening himself to Nyssa enough to make up for the rest of family.”

            “Don’t joke about that, I’ve never been sick coming off of a penny-flyer and I don’t intend to start now.” Tegan replied coldly.

 

            Peri assumed this was now a family matter and attempted to politely turn her attention back to her book. But part of her couldn’t help but listen to what the others were saying, wondering if Turlough would have joined the family if she had stayed with them. She couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if she had joined the Davison household instead of the Bakers. Would she have accepted these people as her siblings? How familiar would she be with Adric’s temper tantrums? Would Nyssa have learned how to calm down Peri the way she calmed down Adric? And, it occurred to Peri with a jolt, how would she have met Dr. Baker? It was difficult to imagine the two of them having a conventional courtship, even if Dr. Davison was acting as her father. Intellectually, Peri knew there was a possible version of events where she wasn’t Dr. Baker’s wife, but it was difficult for her to picture and the more she tried the more she found she didn’t want to.

 

            Turlough and Tegan watched from enough of a distance to not be able to hear anything either of them was saying over the sound of the waves, but it was easy enough to see Nyssa come abreast to Adric, walk beside him, nodding slightly then shaking her head. She gently took his hand in hers and said something quite earnestly. Adric blushed and rubbed his neck awkwardly. They started walking down the beach again, but did not release each other’s hands. Tegan gave a little sigh of disgust.

            “She’s normally such a sensible girl, and then she goes and chases down Adric of all people.” Tegan muttered, shaking her head. “I do like Adric, for all his faults, but… Nyssa has such excellent taste in everything but him.”

             The ginger watched her watch the others, drawing close to Tegan again. They both walked a few more steps away from Mrs. Baker, and Turlough lowered his voice.

            “Are you jealous? Of Nyssa?” Turlough asked, clearly amused. His little smile widened. “Or of Adric?” Tegan glared at him.

            “I’m jealous of both of them.” she admitted, frowning. “They can hold hands in public and everyone acts likes it’s adorable. Oh, of course, it’s so terribly bittersweet for them, living as brother and sister-”

            Tegan was almost snarling, clearly she wasn’t overly impressed by the idea of adopted siblings transitioning to star-crossed lovers.

            “-but they can still live together. If I was _ever_ going to be living with the person I love, it would be as her s-” Tegan stopped herself. “We wouldn’t be married. We couldn’t even walk down the street arm-in-arm. It’s a reasonable thing to be jealous of. Maybe I’m not jealous at all, I’m just lonely. And talking to you isn’t going to help with that any.” Turlough raised his eyebrows significantly.

            “Perhaps we have more in common than you suspect.”

            “Perhaps we have more in common than I care to know.” Tegan replied sharply.

            “I do understand what it means to hide yourself in plain view.” he all but whispered, “Believe me, Tegan. I know that better than anyone.”

            Tegan turned her face into the breeze coming off of the sea, filling her hair. Her eyes and the set of her mouth hardened.

            “We may not know each other well yet, Tegan, but I believe I do understand you. I know how lonely it is to have a secret. You know that I do.” Turlough said seriously, stepping into Tegan’s line of vision. “There is so much that you do not yet know about me simply because there is no one I can speak to of it.”

            “You seem to have been enjoying your air of mystery thus far,” said Tegan. “Especially since we came to Wisteria Bay. You fit in almost too well with the dusty hallways and suggestions of secrets which should have been buried long ago.”

            “Perhaps I do fit in here better than I did in London,” said Turlough, glancing towards the sea in a manner Tegan suspected was intentionally mysterious. “It is not the people so much as the setting that suits me. There is a death-like silence here which reminds me too much of my own for comfort. But I fear this silence may have become oppressive.”

            Turlough looked around the beach furtively, checking that none of the other party was watching them.

            “Tegan,” Turlough said seriously. “I want to take you into my confidence.”

            Tegan frowned. Perhaps later, when she was in a better mood, she would be more interested in what she thought Turlough was assuming of her. She could hardly imagine being less interested. The fact of the matter was, Tegan had very little use of another homosexual if they were of the opposite gender and even _less_ use if they were Turlough. His cagey way of dancing around the subject hardly warmed her to the subject, for that matter.

            “There’s nothing I want to know about you.” Tegan said sharply. “I only stopped flying to get some lunch. You can eat with the rest of us or not, I don’t care.”

 

            With that, Tegan stormed back to the beach umbrella, where the doctors and Mrs. Baker were setting out a picnic, and abandoned Turlough on the edge of the cold grey sea.

 

 

 

[1] this look was nearly identical to that which Adric and Nyssa shared when it was Tegan’s turn to argue with their guardian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In retrospect, the part where Adric looks at his naked chest in the mirror reads a little bit like those examples of why men shouldn’t write women. But then again, that attempt at a tactful way of saying, “and then Adric had a wank” is an example of why this particular woman shouldn’t write teenage boys.  
> I had forgotten I wrote the “biscuit game” exchange and nearly gave myself a heart attack when I went back to proofread. Apparently, I made a distressing enough noise that my sister needed to check on me. If you haven’t heard of it, it is extremely NSFW and described as “the sort of thing that happens at boys boarding schools”, and you almost certainly do not want to google it for more information.  
> In the first draft of this chapter, Adric was actually tried and frustrated enough to jokingly ask the cat for directions. But it just didn’t read like Adric, so that was cut.  
> To be perfectly honest, I’m not as pleased with this chapter as I have been with some of the earlier ones, but there is a surprising amount of plot-relevant details hidden in there.


	7. VII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyssa and Adric attempt to find out more about the ghost they suspect may be haunting Wisteria Bay. They are distracted from this by an uncomfortable conversation about their feelings.  
> Meanwhile, Peri tries to ignore how all of the other guests have started acting even more suspicious than they already were.

**_VII._ **

           In a world where Adric’s endearingly sulky pout was the extent of his immaturity, Nyssa would have had an easier time making sense of how she felt about him. But even that wouldn’t begin to make this simple to understand. Perhaps if they met in different circumstances, things might have been easy. Perhaps if Nyssa had met someone so similar to her in age and intelligence, but so different in how they approached problems she might have simply given into rush of adventure as he pulled her into whatever mystery she had been too cautious to admit being fascinated by. And in the process given into other things she had been cautious about. Nyssa was sixteen after all, and no one would be surprised by her thoughts turning to boys with awkward grins and clever plans.

           But circumstances were _not_ different. Nyssa was _not_ a normal sixteen-year-old girl and she wasn’t going to make a place for herself in London’s academic world by acting like one. Not that she was sure she’d be able to if she wanted to, growing up there had been such formality surrounding courtship Nyssa had for several years expected her first romance to arranged by her parents. Parents who now lay dead hundreds of miles away, which put the final nail into the coffin of what would have been Nyssa and Adric’s relationship: He was legally her brother, which really ought to have finished off Nyssa’s thoughts on the matter. It didn’t, of course, but she rather thought they _should._

           She couldn’t help but wonder if her attraction to Adric was like an attraction she might have to a pathetic, dirty and starving dog which her poor gentle heart couldn’t help but take home and give a good meal and a bath; only to discover that what she had brought in was actually a wild fox feeling rather as if they are owed an explanation and that she actually preferred cats in the first place.

           Of course, she might openly reject all of these misgivings and accept that in doing so she might let them both be genuinely happy, but that didn’t seem like an effective way to just be with Adric and feel _normal_ for once. It shouldn’t take some grand gesture of eternal love to simply hold the hand of the boy she fancied! Nyssa understood that much, even if she didn’t quite understand her own feelings on the matter, but she had no indication he did as well. She hoped, nearly every time she saw Adric she silently wished, that he wouldn’t ask her a question she didn’t have an answer to.

           It was even worse in this pompous and dreary setting, Nyssa had grown so used to the bustle of London that now every word spoken in the stillness of Wisteria Bay took on deathly importance. Even simply leaving a room took on the air of a dramatic pantomime, and it was clearly wearing on Adric as much as it was on her. There was most definitely something different with Adric since the night of the storm; he had a hunted and underslept look about him, shadows beneath his eyes at all times of the day and his face was pale as death. Adric’s slight form had taken less the endearingly gangly posture she was used to, like a fawn learning how to walk, and more the stiff movements of a somnambulist or a zombie. Nyssa’s mind often went unbidden to the image of a corpse who did not realise that it was dead and forced itself through the motions of life. It was not a welcome addition to either the dark and morbid setting or her general feeling of unrest.

           Most surprisingly of all, he had taken to sulking quietly rather than verbally listing all the ways he was displeased. She had hoped that perhaps his presence might be able to cheer her, his confident dismissal of supernatural explanations would be able to let her put them from her mind as well. But his silence and the haunted stares he fixed her with from time to time dampened any comfort his friendship should have brought her and replaced her adopted brother with the hero of a romance she has not prepared to pursue.

           So, when given the opportunity to spend some time with him in a completely academic pursuit, Nyssa was somewhat wary that he might have an ulterior motive in this. She of course said yes.

 

 _Our Family History, 1760-1840_ by _P. Baker_ was propped open on a stack of other books as Nyssa and Adric searched the library for books mentioned in the bibliography. It was a cool, foggy day for late June and the view out of the bay windows looked very much like the pages of the books, with a few scrubby black lines of the climbing wisteria crossing the windows like handwriting. As the window faced away from the sea, all that it showed was the grey moorland stretching away into a white fog. The echoes of the sea seemed unnatural looking out into the scrubby waste, the sound of waves beating vainly on the cliffs like the fists of the damned begging sanctuary, knowing none will come but lacking the option to stop.

           Between her perplexing feelings about Adric and the more intense and unsettling feeling of being in this unhappy home, Nyssa was glad to have something else to focus on. Though perhaps studying the history of Wisteria Bay with him might not have been an effective way to keep her mind off either subject. The ruffles of her striped lawn dress, an unexpected reminder that it was in fact summer, brushed the worn burgundy velvet of the chair back as Nyssa stood on its seat to check the spines of books on the shelf above their heads.

 

            “These journals might not go back a full eighty years!”

            “Then it should be a quick matter to check them.” said Nyssa.

           “It just seems a bit of a wild goose chase, honestly.” said Adric.

           “You remember what Dr. Baker said,” Nyssa said firmly. “The Bakers never throw away anything, least of all a book. We have already figured out this library is the one with the best history section. All the other books on the shelf are personal accounts. The journal quoted in _Our Family History_ will surely be here!”

           “That is if the Bakers thought that one of their old journals was worth keeping.” he replied with a frown. He looked around the scrambled wealth of barely-organised books.

           “But on the other hand, if we can take two things as Baker family traits, then was can assume that the past Bakers were overly impressed with their own insights and had no interest in getting rid of anything which might possibly be of a use someday.” Adric said thoughtfully. Nyssa covered a laugh.

           “What’s funny about that?” Adric frowned.

           “Nothing, it’s just… at the beginning of the holiday, we might have listed mental illness in the most common Baker family traits.” she smiled. He exhaled forcefully.

           “…I haven’t changed my mind about how mad Dr. Baker is,” Adric mumbled. “But I’m beginning to think that the rest of us are a lot closer to that than I realised.” Nyssa smiled sympathetically.

           “The longer you stay here, the easier it is to feel as if you’re going mad,” said Nyssa. “It seems to me that every day I catch another glimpse of something which at best has a complicated explanation I shall never know and feels as if it ought not to exist at all. Sometimes I cannot help but wonder if I imagined at least one of them.”

            Adric nodded, thinking of Varsh standing at the end of the hallway. The memory of it chilled him, the moonlight illuminating fall of his hair and that half-turn where, just for a moment, Adric could almost see his brother’s face. Pale as death, and with that unnatural little smile, a smile so like the boy in the painting Varsh lead him to. Was this simply the smile worn by the dead? Or did the ghost of his brother take on the aspect of a long-dead madman staring down from the ancient walls?

Adric frowned, appalled at his own thought process, how quickly it had turned to accept the impossible and overdramatic. Perhaps, in the few weeks he had spent here, the effect Wisteria Bay had on the generations of mad Bakers was taking its toll on Adric himself, and that he would end up no better than their lot: insane and self-aggrandising. The other option was no more comforting; that he _had_ seen his dead brother walking the sepulchral halls of Wisteria Bay. Adric frowned to himself. He would have never used the word ‘sepulchral’ before he came here; the setting was most decidedly having an effect on his mind.

           But if it were true that the explanation for what Adric had seen since the beginning of summer was a supernatural one, that awoke a second and more personal horror in Adric’s breast: That he would need to admit to Nyssa that he had been wrong. Being wrong at all was a nightmare in itself for the boy; for often he felt his reasoning was all he had. But to be wrong in his deepest held belief; that the world they lived in was a rational one that could be explained and understood, was more than Adric could bear.

 

           He paused thoughtfully, torn between telling Nyssa what he had seen and the strangely tempting idea of pretending he had seen nothing at all. Nyssa, oblivious to this, quickly read a passage out of the most recent book she’d pulled from the shelf and flipped back to the beginning of the book.

            “This account starts in 1822,” Nyssa mused. “It’s alluded to some ‘strange happenings’, the author keeps mentioning a maid taking ‘funny turns’ but doesn’t give any detail as to what these ‘funny turns’ might be. They don’t even mention what the maid’s name is, they just keep calling her ‘the Italian girl’. I wish I knew whether that meant she was actually a child or if the author describes all of the servants as ‘boys’ and ‘girls’.” Nyssa frowned at the book for two reasons: first, Nyssa had a great deal of respect for staff and addressing grown women as “girl” didn’t really express the respect and knowledge that a house like this would fall into total chaos without it’s staff.            Second, it made it difficult for her to discern when the village letting its children serve at Wisteria Bay. Perhaps she was looking too far back.

            “I know it’s not uncommon in England for people to join service very young, and it was probably even more so at the turn of the century.” Nyssa closed the book and set it on the seat of a chair. “I wonder how far back the staff records go… and if they would have their ages.”

            “What are you talking about?” asked Adric, clearly perplexed.

            “Adric, what have you noticed about the staff here?” Nyssa prompted. Adric ruffled his hair and looked at the ceiling.

            “They are look really miserable. I don’t think they like working here, but they clearly don’t have a choice.” Adric guessed. “I think it has something to do with Dr. Baker. I don’t think they like the idea of him being in charge of the house.”

            “But what else?”

            “Well… you never see two of them at a time.” he said with a shrug. “Even if there’s one doing something in the room when you walk in, they immediately pick up their brushes or whatever and run out of the room. It’s like they’re scared of us.”

            “There’s no children!” Nyssa exclaimed. “You and I are the youngest people here. Some of the staff look like they can be our age, but none of them are any younger.”

            “Is that a bad thing?” asked Adric. “Look at us. We were both allowed to continue our studies past when other children would be forced to seek employment. Of course, I _was_ chosen to keep to my studies because it was clear I am a genius; but if poorer children were given the same opportunity it would do wonders for their adult lives.”

            Nyssa sighed heavily, not sure whether to smile or beat her head against a wall. Once again, Adric had reached a thoughtful, intelligent conclusion by completely missing the point of what was actually being asked.

            “Maybe it’s not a bad thing in itself, but sometimes good things happen for horrid reasons.” Nyssa explained. Adric nodded, seeming to follow her line of thought so far. “But you have lived in England even longer than I have. You’ve seen how early they put their children to work. But there isn’t any children working at Wisteria Bay, and when Tilly realised she had told us that, she stopped talking altogether.”

            This was the first point she had made which wasn’t met with Adric’s nodding acquiescence.

            “Who’s Tilly?” he asked.

            “Mrs. Baker’s lady’s maid. And now that I think about it, I’ve said it wrong. Tilly talked the entire time she was helping Tegan and I get ready, but after she realised she had said there weren’t any children in the house she got very defensive of her mistress and refused to say anything that wasn’t directly related to whatever happened to be in her hands at the time.” The memory of the awkward conversation showed plainly on Nyssa’s face. “…and what was in her hands the entire time was either our dresses or our hair.”

 

            Adric nodded seriously. The idea of someone forcing him into formalwear and combed hair sounded like nothing short of torture. He was beginning to dislike this woman already.

            “Perhaps we could get the maid to tell us?” asked Adric. Nyssa shook her head.

            “She was quite insistent on that point; Tilly wouldn’t speak a word against the family. Especially anything that might cast Mrs. Baker in a bad light.” And she didn’t seem as fond of them as she was of her mistress, Tilly gave every impression that she would be as tight-lipped about the rest of the family; whether that family was lain in the featherbeds in the master suite or in the family plot on the edge of the moors. She wasn’t sure how she would be able to find that graveyard, but Nyssa had seen it from one of the higher windows. She wasn’t overly surprised that the Bakers had a private graveyard on their grounds, many families of their means did the same. But it was rather closer to the house than she would have expected. Perhaps, Nyssa mused, that might be in some way symbolic of how death did little to loosen a member’s influence on the family. Distance certainly did not. Nyssa closed the book and stared into the distance for half a moment before turning to Adric with a serious expression.

            “Adric, I saw something the first day we came here. Something I couldn’t explain. Before I tell you any more, you must promise not to scoff at me and tell me I’m a silly girl who’s imagining things.”

            “Nyssa, would I ever say that?” asked Adric, showing his remarkable lack of self-awareness.

            “Promise me, Adric!”

            “Alright! I promise!” he huffed, feeling very put upon. “Now what is it?”

           

            Nyssa clasped her hands nervously over the book, noticed what she was doing, and set it down next to the pile. She took a deep breath and began speaking.

            “Do you remember the dresses Tegan and I wore the first night we stayed here?” Nyssa asked.

            “Where those from the turn of the century? Is _that_ what this is about?” Adric asked sceptically. Nyssa shook her head.

            “No, those weren’t nearly so old. I don’t think we would have tried to put them on if they were that old… eighty year old fabric would be rather too delicate, I think.”

           Nyssa looked away fretfully, wringing her hands. She couldn’t prove that she had seen a child in the attic, not to herself and certainly not to Adric. Stubborn, obsessed with the empirical, how could she tell him what she had seen without Adric immediately dismissing it?

           “We didn’t find the dresses immediately.” Nyssa began. “The attic was… oh, if the layout of the house is confusing, it’s nothing to what it’s like in the attic. Everything was so white and dusty, and things were piled over each other with no pattern, so high you couldn’t see the walls. I was… I was overcome with melancholy; thinking about how every abandoned object that surrounded us was someone that someone once thought was so dear that they couldn’t possibility part with it. That’s when I saw it.” Nyssa licked her lips. “That’s when I saw _him._ ”

           Adric sank into the seat beside Nyssa, eyes wide and unblinking. She could not ask for a more captive audience. She cast her eyes down, unsure what effect Adric’s prolonged gaze would have on her. She watched his hands move forward and clasp hers above the book, his movements so slow Nyssa wasn’t sure if he was scared to take her hand or if his head was unaware of his hand’s movements.

           “Saw who?” Adric asked softly, his voice lower than Nyssa could remember it going before. She hadn’t been expecting this at all, but her story seemed to be affecting him as deeply as it effected her. Nyssa closed her eyes, pictured the figure at clearly as she could, golden curls and quick movements.

           “I don’t know who it was.” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “And I haven’t seen him since. He looked young, younger than us I mean. A child. This little boy, standing so still that at first I thought he was a doll. But he began to run, and laugh… his laugh…” Nyssa shivered. It was not a pleasant laugh, if she could compare it to anything that laugh was the audible equivalent of dropping a bit of ice down the back of someone’s dress.

           “Part of me wants to… cannot, but desperately wants to, believe he wasn’t real. That I had just imagined him. But I can see every curl on his head as clearly now as I could when it was happening. As real as you are right now.”

           Nyssa raised her hand and held it out between them.

           “All I could think was that if I could only move a little bit faster, reach out my hand a little bit further, I could have been able to just reach out and-”

           Nyssa paused and drew a breath. Before she resumed speaking, Adric slowly raised his own hand and so softly that one might believe he wasn’t there at all, brushed his own fingertips against Nyssa’s.

           “-touch him.” Adric finished. Nyssa’s fingers began to curl, and for a moment Adric thought she was going top take his hand, but she turned away, drawing her hand to her chest. Adric let out a loud breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding.

           “But then he disappeared. I turned a corner, and there was nowhere for him to go, but he wasn’t there. Every side was stacked high with all manner of things, and in the clearest spot on the floor, there was a large chest… it might have seemed a cheery-looking chest in another situation, it had flowers painted on it’s lid but looking at it, I couldn’t help but think that if I opened it up, I’d see the corpse of the little boy I’d followed. Like in that old story—”

           “ _The Mistletoe Bough._ ” said Adric, shaking his head. “I always thought that the silly songs and poetry my literature professor was so fond of would never come up again in my life. And they would have done, if I’d kept clear of Dr. Baker!”

           “But of course, there wasn’t a corpse in there, just clothing. Very old, very beautiful clothing… which fit us with nearly no alteration. It was exactly what we were looking for. I couldn’t help but feel like… I was being led to them.”

           “Led to them?” Adric repeated. He thought of the cat. It hadn’t exactly _led_ him back to his room… but it did walk that way, and he did follow it. And they did end up back in his room. But that was entirely different. That was a cat.

           Adric stared at his feet, trying to work through what Nyssa had told them. He did believe her, completely, although he almost wished that he didn’t. Because if she had seen a ghost, than maybe she wouldn’t be as quick to dismiss what he had seen. How he wished that she was just telling stories to try and frighten him.

            “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” asked Adric.

            “You know perfectly well what you’re like![1] If I told you then you would have told me I was being a silly excitable girl. You wouldn’t be able to decide if I was putting you on or if I had somehow gone a bit mad myself. Look, you’re doing it right now.”

            “I am not!” Adric protested.[2] “I believe you. And I’m just hoping that you’ll believe me.”

            “Believe you?” Nyssa asked. Her eyes grew like puddles expanding as more liquid was poured in. The next words came out as little more than a whisper. “You saw something.”

 

            Adric turned away and chewed his lip. There was no way he couldn’t tell Nyssa about Varsh now. Either she would believe him, or she wouldn’t. He didn’t know which would be worse.

            “I got lost.” he began weakly. “The night before Dr. Davison wanted to take us air-cycling. You know I’m no good trying to find my way around. If it were a matter of making it out of a proper maze, that would be one thing! There’s dozens of theories for being lost in a maze! I haven’t yet read one for not being able to find you bed in an impractically large house!”

            As he spoke, Adric worked himself up into a level of annoyance that allowed him to continue to the part of the story that this conversation was concerned with.

            “And while I was lost, I ran into…” Adric paused. He ran into _a lot_ of things while he was lost, and he didn’t really want to admit to Nyssa he’d found her bedroom before his, or that Turlough had tormented him in the dark, and he didn’t even want to _think_ about what he heard the Bakers doing. “…well, not ran into as such, but…”

            Adric took a deep, steadying breath. He hadn’t said this aloud before, and actually saying it made it feel more real.

            “I saw Varsh standing at the end of the hallway.” said Adric. There was a long pause where he waited for Nyssa to react and Nyssa waited for him to explain.

            “Varsh. My elder brother, who had been looking after me until—until Dr. Davison took me in.” Adric touched his head. Why was this so hard? “Varsh, which is dead. Of course I tried to talk to him, but he ran away as soon as he saw me. I don’t even know where we ran, but he led me what felt like halfway across the building and I know we went up a flight of stairs, because I tripp—because I needed to go down a storey to go to go to bed.”

            Nyssa placed a hand gently on Adric’s arm, staring kindly but intensely into his eyes. For once, he didn’t flush or feel the need to turn away. It was that same damn look she wore when he tried to imagine what it would be like to reveal his feelings for her, only to have her _kindly_ and _sweetly_ reject his attentions. It cut into Adric like a knife, suddenly all he could think was that he needed to run away from her before he started crying.

            “Are you sure it was Varsh?” Nyssa asked.

            “Of course I’m sure!” Adric snapped, ripping his arm away. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me! I knew, and you made me tell you anyway.”

            He voice grew less angry and more petulant as he spoke, and he drew away from her, bending forward so she couldn’t see his face. Nyssa sighed weakly and laid a hand on Adric’s shoulder. Something about that gentle touch awoke the part of Adric who was acutely aware of his affection for Nyssa, and his hurt feelings all became very muted against the churning, light, and almost nauseated feeling of Nyssa touching him.

            “I believe you, Adric.” she said softly. “I believe this house is haunted. I just have never heard of a ghost haunting a place it never saw in life.”

            Adric turned around in his seat, catching full sight of Nyssa once more. One foot was curled up under her on the couch; one hand was still delicately extended towards him. He was struck by the image of a fawn, all elegant posture and large eyes. Eyes without a trace a pity, staring, it seemed, into his very soul with compassion and understanding. His breath caught in his throat, buying him time while he remembered why he had turned around in the first place.

            “You believe me?” Adric asked. Nyssa smiled.

            “Of course.” she smiled weakly. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t believe me, but if we’ve _both_ seen the ghost…”

 

            Adric nodded and leaned back against the couch. He tried to stick his hands in his pockets without much success and pondered.

            “Although… it doesn’t sound much like the same ghost to me. Varsh had dark hair, almost black.” said Adric, looking away. Or _had_ it been black? Why was it so easy to forget details about the dead, particularly when the only photo he had of Varsh was taken when Adric was a baby, and the surly sepia-toned child standing between his parents and giving his infant brother a covert glance of intense distrust. But he had known Varsh all his life, he should have been able to remember that without prompting. Nyssa looked as deep in thought as Adric, though her mind was clearly moving in a different direction. She turned in her seat to address him.

            “Adric, we need to find out more about this ghost. Maybe if we knew more about what they had done in life, we could figure out why they appeared to me as a young blond boy and why they appeared to you as your brother.”

            “Maybe there’s more than one of them.” Adric offered, clearly not excited by the prospect. Nyssa nodded, looking around the library.

            “The idea had crossed my mind…” Nyssa admitted, “…this house looks rather as if it could house a hundred ghosts.” Adric baulked at the thought.

            “I hope it doesn’t. I’m not entirely sure if I’m prepared to make a lifelong study of the ghosts of Wisteria Bay.” he said so plainly that Nyssa laughed. Hearing Adric speak about the supernatural was more entertaining than she had thought it would be.

 

            “It’s clear to me what we need to do.” said Adric. “We need to try and see if we can find out more about these ghosts.”

            Nyssa nodded, and reached for the book again.

            “Finding a reference to a boy with curly blond hair might be tricky, if the family portraits are any evidence most of the family has curly hair and many children are quite fair-haired when they’re quite young.”

            “That won’t do us any good!” Adric ejaculated with such force Nyssa hopped to the next seat over in surprise. “We don’t know enough about these ghosts to know what books we should be looking for!”

           Adric’s gaze hardened.

            “We need to go to where we had _seen_ the ghosts and see if there’s any reason they might appear just where they did.”

`            “I was rather more picturing refocusing our reading.” Nyssa admitted uncomfortably.

            “And see where that has gotten us!” Adric exclaimed, drawing to his feet. “The only useful thing we’ve learned all day is what we told each other!” Nyssa frowned. She couldn’t argue with that.

            “Come on, Nyssa, it isn’t as if we would be doing anything wrong. You’re merely showing me something interesting you saw earlier on this holiday. If it were a spot in the garden and not the attic we wouldn’t even be having this conversation!”

            Again, Nyssa couldn’t argue with that, and her misgivings about the prospect were being somewhat quieted by her own personal curiosity.

            “After all, what else would two innocent children like us get up to on a rainy day like today other than exploring the house?” he concluded. Nyssa gave a little sigh that was the verbal equivalent of waving a white flag. She never would have been so willing to bend a permission to suit her curiosity without Adric’s prodding, which was precisely why she wanted his help in the first place.

“This isn’t so much looking for a needle in a haystack as looking through a haystack to see if we spot anything other than hay.” Nyssa took Adric’s hand and rose to her feet.

            “All you need to find a needle in a haystack is a magnet and some patience.” said Nyssa, not bothering to release Adric’s hand as they left the room. “This isn’t looking for a needle in a haystack, it’s looking for a needle in a box of pins.”

 

           The two left the room, arguing quietly about needles, Tegan, and the best ways to find them. Adric had a number of ideas that were completely unsuited to anything but theoretical haystacks, including setting them on fire and vibrating them in a large sieve which allowed denser metal objects to fall out of the bottom. None of his ideas had the least to do with where Tegan might be. So involved were the two in their conversation, both of them completely forgot to put the library back in any sort of order.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            “Would it be polite to send his parents an invitation?” Peri asked weakly, running her finger down the side of a list, carefully not touching the letters in case the ink hadn’t dried.

            “Dr. and Mrs. Baker are on the continent. They aren’t going to come home for a country ball.” said Tilly, writing out another list.

            “That’s why I’m asking.” said Peri desperately. “In America, sending an invitation to someone you know won’t be able to come is a really sarcastic way to say you didn’t want them there in the first place. Especially if they’re relatives.”

            She brushed her bangs out of her face.

            “Where’s Mrs. Bellingham?” Peri asked with an edge of desperation. “I thought she was going to help me plan this ball.”

Peri frowned.

            “ _Is_ it a ball if it’s just one family hosting it?” she asked no one in particular. “Or do you need to get the military involved?”

            “I think as long as there’s dancing, it’s a ball.” said Tilly. Peri looked at the mess of papers and sighed.

            “Why should I care how ‘respectable’ these families are? I don’t know any of these people anyway. I’m just going to invite everyone within an hour’s air carriage ride.” Peri sighed in frustration. “Maybe then we’ll get someone who actually likes to dance.”

            “Oh, you don’t want to do that, Peri!” Tilly protested. “We’re only on this side of respectable ourselves, and that’s only because of the amount of the townspeople this house employs! Inviting absolutely everyone is a sure way to insult _someone!”_

            “Better make it an hour and a half, then?” Peri asked, rolling her eyes. She wrote “and everyone else” on the bottom of the list of potential guests, half as a joke.

            “I’m sure that there would be more interest if the ball didn’t have such a morbid theme.” Tilly suggested nervously. Peri looked up at her like that was the most peculiar thing she had heard all summer. Which was saying something, giving the settling.

            “What’s morbid about history?” Peri asked. “It’s not like we’re going to get another one hundredth anniversary to celebrate any time soon.”

            “But…” Tilly looked uncomfortable. “…the one hundredth anniversary of the wreck of _The Wisteria?_ ”

            “It was my husband’s idea.” Peri admitted.

The young wife rearranged the stack of papers in front of her in a vain hope that if she looked like she knew what she was doing, it might become easier for her to figure out.

            “Tilly, I hate to send you running all over the house, but can you please try and find Mrs. Bellingham? I know she’s been on long enough to see more than one ball in this house. If nothing else, she’ll be able to tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

            “Yes, Mrs. Baker.” Tilly said automatically. She half-smiled, half-winced, and added “Peri.”

            “Thanks, Tilly. If you can’t find her, find Mrs. Smythe.” said Peri, pushing aside a paper full of messy notes. “She’ll at least know how much food people are supposed to eat while they’re dancing.”

            “And if I can’t find the housekeeper or the cook, should I get the butler?” asked Tilly. Peri looked slightly aghast.

            “Tilly, I would _never_ ask you to fetch Jayston. You might end up alone with him at the top of a flight of stairs, and I’d be out a good friend and a great ladies’ maid.” Tilly giggled, leaving the room. It didn’t occur to her to pause to defend Jayston, and if it had she wouldn’t have done it.

 

            Peri wouldn’t have been able to say how much time she spent spreading the papers back over the desk and trying to figure out what was causing this vague but persistent feeling she was missing something important. Partially because she kept finding herself thinking that this whole ball was a mistake and a waste of time, and partially because it was the sort of task that feels as if its taking forever without much feeling of accomplishment. But however long it was, she was glad of a reprieve when she heard a door open behind her.

            “Ah, Mrs. Bellingham-?” Peri asked, turning around in her seat.

            “Not unless I’m suffering some rather spectacular amnesia, I’m afraid.” said Dr. Davison.

            “Oh. Hello, Peter.” said Peri, setting the papers in her hand.

            “Are we on a first-name basis, Mrs. Baker?”

            “I hope so, even if it’s just so I’m looking at a friendly face right now.” she said with a smile. He smiled back awkwardly.

            “I can’t help but be a bit on guard when you say that, Mrs. Baker.” he replied with a nervous smile. “Your husband only ever addresses me by my first name if he’s annoyed with me. So he’s been saying it rather a lot recently.”

            “Do I _look_ like my husband?” Peri asked, raising an eyebrow. “Say no or don’t answer.” Dr. Davison laughed and shook his head.

            “I may rely on my reading glasses more than I’d like, but I’m not _quite_ that near sighted yet.”

            “Well, now that you’ve found me, what’s on your mind?”

            “Not to be rude, Peri, but I wasn’t looking for you. I hadn’t the slightest idea you were in here.” Dr. Davison said politely.

            “I’ll try to curb my disappointment.” Peri responded dryly. “Did you need something out of my study, then? Looking for a fresh cutting of something edible to pin to your jacket?”

           Peri waved her hand vaguely in the direction of a potted plant. There were several of them in various positions across the room, carefully positioned to get the ideal amount of sunlight with very little attention paid to whether or not it might get in the way of using anything else in the room. It was probably how one could tell this was her study and not a room left as some long-dead relative liked it.

           “…I was… looking for something.” Dr. Davison asked lamely.

            “Oh? What?”

            “It doesn’t matter. It clearly isn’t in here.” he said quickly. Peri wondered if she was imagining it, or if his voice was starting to get shrill again. Dr. Davison nervously put his hands in his trouser pockets and looked around furtively.

            “I beg your pardon for the interruption.”

            “Are you alright?” Peri asked, “You look agitated.”

            “I thought I always looked agitated.” he responded shrilly.

            “I wasn’t comparing you to Nyssa, I was comparing you to you.” Peri’s voice rumbled with frustration. “You look agitated _for you.”_

 

            Dr. Davison took his hands out of his pockets and looked affronted, but before he could think of anything to say, a third person entered the room. She wasn’t Mrs. Bellingham either.

            Tegan had thought black leather trim on her black, white and red calico gown was quite daring until she had spent enough time in Mrs. Baker’s company to know that cleavage looked very much the same no matter what combination of berry-bright colours framed it. Today’s raspberry pink and _extremely_ well fitted gown was no exception, and Tegan was privately quite pleased that her ability to appreciate Mrs. Baker’s appearance was far more subtle than Adric’s. Still, that wasn’t what caught her attention at the moment. Not with the way that her guardian and Mrs. Baker were staring at her.

           Tegan looked from one of them to the other.

            “What exactly am I interrupting?” she asked.

            “I was hoping you could tell me.” said Peri. Both of the women turned their gaze to Dr. Davison, who seemed quite overwhelmed by the attention.

            “It’s nothing.” he squeaked. “And it you don’t mind, I’ll keep looking for… well, I’ll keep looking elsewhere. One can’t help but inventing of crimes to confess to when stood between the two of you, and I’ve got more than enough sins to worry over without adding lying to their number.” With that, Dr. Davison scrambled out of the room as if in his panic he had lost the knack of walking on two legs.

 

            “What’s flown up his trouser-leg?” Tegan mused.

            “Your guess is as good as mine.” said Peri. “Probably better, since you might have seen him like this before.”

            “I’ve seen him do some very strange things…” Tegan admitted. “But I don’t know what that was.” The Australian shrugged and turned her attention back to her hostess. Now that she was nervously passing it from one hand to the other, Peri noticed that Tegan was holding a sealed envelope.

            “I ran into your maid, Tilly, while she was looking for the housekeeper.” Tegan began with the tone of someone who is about to ask for a favour in a very roundabout way. As Peri turned her gaze to the other woman’s face, Tegan appeared to give up on that.

            “Could I put this letter in with your post?” she asked quickly, holding out the paper.

            “Sure.” said Peri, taking the envelope and adding it to the frustratingly small pile of lettered invitations without looking at it.

            “It’s for a friend.” Tegan said quickly. “A friend in London.”

            “Oh, just as I wasn’t wondering.” Peri muttered flatly. She picked up a list and looked at in frustration. She normally got on quite well with Tegan, but Tegan usually didn’t sound as if she was making excuses. It annoyed Peri, which wasn’t hard to do in her current state. Dr. Davison’s strange behaviour didn’t help at all; especially since most of Peri wanted to abandon this whole invitation business and find out why exactly her guests had started sneaking about guiltily, and since she knew that wasn’t an option, it frustrated her.

            “It’s nothing… nothing I _couldn’t_ ask my guardian to post for me, you understand, he knows this friend, but since you’ve got that stack of mail there-” Tegan realised she was blithering and did not care for it.

            “Does your friend want to come to the ball at the end of the month?” Peri asked, far more sharply than she intended.

            “I-I don’t think they would be able.” Tegan sputtered.

            “Then can we have this conversation later?” Peri asked tersely. Tegan took a step back and held onto an expression somewhere between insult and distress for longer than she thought her face could stay in one position. She didn’t care for Peri’s tone at all; she was starting to sound too much like her husband. But she _had_ agreed to post Tegan’s letter, so now would be a bad time to shout back at her. Not that it would stop her if Peri continued in that vein.

            “If any more of your family want to come in here and act suspicious, I’ll be in all afternoon.” Peri grumbled.

            “I’ll be sure to let Turlough know.” said Tegan, leaving the room. “Acting suspicious is all that he seems to do these days.”

            “Tegan!” Peri called loudly. The Australian turned.

            “What?” Tegan asked. Peri closed her eyes and rubbed them with her fingers.

            “I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Peri muttered. “It’s not anything you did.”

            “I didn’t think it was.” said Tegan. She considered asking Peri what actually _was_ bothering her, but paused too long while trying to decide. Tegan left the room, closing the door as quietly as possible.

            “I’m turning into my husband.” Peri groaned into her hands.

****

**_❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            With an oil lamp in one hand and Nyssa’s hand in the other, Adric was feeling far more confident about navigating the hallways than he had been the night he got lost. But it was far easier to be confident when you weren’t lost at the moment, and it was far easier to not be lost when you’d already found your way out of that section of the house. Adric knew exactly where he was. It was really only a technicality that Nyssa was doing the actual navigation. Particularly given that it was Adric who pulled them to a stop.

            “Just a moment…” he said, looking up at one of the many dark and dismal paintings that lined the walls like windows into a hundred unpleasant situations. Adric had several questions about the Bakers’ taste in decoration, none of which he wanted answered.

            “What is it?” Nyssa asked.

            “I think I may have seen this portrait before, when I got lost that night.” Adric frowned. “But I thought that was an entirely different part of the house.”

            “Perhaps it’s just a family resemblance?” Nyssa suggested.

            “No, I recognise the eye patch.” Adric looked up at the life-size portrait of a boy not much younger than he was. “This is the same painting.” Nyssa let go of Adric’s hand and studied the picture seriously.

           The face had the same angles around the chin and nose as Dr. Baker, but clearer and sharper; more youthful. Nyssa couldn’t make up her mind whether this was the painting of a boyish looking youth or a maturely dressed boy. His head was crowned with neatly arranged white-gold curls, like an angel, but the smile he wore was devilish. He was handsome, she supposed, but there was something deeply unsettling about his expression. There was something very odd in the single eye she could see, and Nyssa found herself wondering if that was a mistake on the painter’s part, or that the paint had faded with time, but the pupil was tiny, a single black spot with no colour around it that she could see, at least not in this dim light.

           But that wasn’t what made the breath catch in her throat. She had seen this boy before. She hadn’t seen his face the first time, but she couldn’t make herself believe for a moment it wasn’t the same person. The black velvet suit, the mass of golden curls, the small and youthful frame… and now she could see his face.

           How old was this painting, and why did the boy look exactly the same when she saw him in the attic? Nyssa remembered what she had said to Tegan when they saw the doll in the passage _: “Older than either of us, but always a child…”_

           “…Adric…” Nyssa’s voice came out in little more than a whisper. “…I think I’ve seen him, too.” She realised that she was reaching out as if to take the hand of the boy in the portrait and nervously smoothed her dress.

            “Pity these paintings don’t have name plates, like in a museum.” she said quickly. “There’s really no way of knowing who this is a painting of. Or when it was done.”

           “What do you mean, you’ve seen him too? You’ve seen this painting?” said Adric, paying very little attention to the portrait. A realization crept up on the young man like a cold draft of air filling the room, and with the same effect. “Or is he…?”

           Nyssa nodded, but said nothing. She kept her eyes on the painting, studying the lad’s face. The band of the eye-patch explained the odd way his curls parted from the back, a detail that Nyssa had completely forgotten until this point. The single, pale blue eye fixed on her, and while Nyssa knew that was just because of where she was standing, she couldn’t help but feel like the boy was looking directly at her. Surely, it was just an effect of looking at the picture for so long without blinking, stood in such chill hallway with such an uneasy atmosphere to it, but Nyssa was sure that the longer she looked at it, the wider the boy was smiling. And that he was smiling because he saw her.

           Something touched Nyssa’s hand, and she let out a screech of terror.

           Directly into Adric’s concerned face, causing him to drop what he had hoped was a comforting squeeze of the hand. _Girls!_ he thought, ascribing, as he often did, his inability to read emotions as an unpredictability in the feminine psyche. Adric, however, was starting to grasp the idea that if he felt he was owed an apology, perhaps for someone screaming in his face, the best way to prompt it was to apologise himself for whatever totally innocent thing he had most recently done. He didn’t like it at all, and thought it was simply the world being unfair to him, but he had noticed the pattern.

           “Sorry, Nyssa.” he mumbled.

           “I’m alright, you just startled me.” Nyssa said hurriedly, quite happy to return to the world of awkward brothers. “I was just thinking that if we knew our history a bit better, perhaps we might be able to guess when this was painted by what he was wearing.”

           “Don’t look at me, I can barely tell that’s out of fashion.”

            “I didn’t really expect you to know what time period this is from the suit, you never seem to notice anything about clothes.”

            “I notice what other people are wearing.” Adric defended. “I noticed the violet dress you wore to dinner on our first night here. You had little butterflies all around your shoulders…” Adric trailed off and tried to play off his flush as anger instead of being able to picture Nyssa’s bare shoulders very clearly, tearing into his dinner every time he caught himself watching her curls slide over the exposed flesh.

            “You said that I looked like a ghost in the old dress Tilly found for me to wear at dinner!”

            “I said Tegan looked like a ghost. You looked like-” Adric defended weakly, but rather ran out of steam. He stuck his hands in his pockets and turned pink. “A much prettier ghost.”

           Nyssa wasn’t sure what to make of that, so she smiled and turned her attention back to the painting.

           

            “Have a look at this Adric… it looks like he’s holding something.”

            “That’s what I thought when I first saw it.” said Adric, holding the lamp closer. “Do you think it might be Dr. Baker?” Nyssa shook her head.

            “Look at the clothing, Adric.” Nyssa pointed. “This was painted… if I had to guess, sometime around the turn of the century, and the figure looks to be around our age.”

            “Putting him in his mid-nineties.” Adric finished.

“But if this was painted in the aughts, it can’t be Dr. Baker, he’s only in his forties.”

            “Thirty-nine, actually.” said a voice in the darkness. What had been a black outline in a shadow burst into colour as he stepped into the ball of light.

            “That isn’t me.” Dr. Baker sneered. “There is such a thing as familial resemblances, provided the family _does_ share some heritage beyond living in one house.” Adric wasn’t entirely sure if that was meant to be a dig at his adopted family, but both of the teenagers glared at him for that regardless. Nyssa was the first to regain her composure; largely because she had one to regain.

            “Forgive us for not saying hello, Dr. Baker. We didn’t see you until just now.” she said politely. “We were just giving ourselves a tour of the wing. Admiring the paintings. Weren’t we, Adric?” Nyssa nudged him.

           “Yes! Your collection is very… impressive.” he finished lamely. “It suits the house nicely.” He looked past Dr. Baker at the nasty smile of the boy in the painting. It gave him much the same feeling he got when alone in Wisteria Bay; the feeling that there was someone standing behind him with a very large knife. Dr. Baker idly took the lamp out of Adric’s hands, seeming not to notice the boy was even there.

 

            “Do you know who this is a painting of?” Nyssa asked.

            “Yes and no.” said Dr. Baker, moving the lamp closer to the picture. “I know that his name was Jonathan Baker. I know that he was my uncle, some generations removed. And I know this is the latest painting done of him before his rather untimely demise sometime around 1803.”

            “Don’t tell me that he died in this house.” said Adric.

            “If you insist.” replied Dr. Baker dryly. Adric and Nyssa looked at each other with nearly identical expressions of dread.

            “You wouldn’t happen to know how he died, would you?” asked Nyssa. Adric thought this sounded suspicious, so he added, “We’re very interested in history.”

           Nyssa thought that sounded a lot more suspicious than anything she had said, so she fixed Adric with a look a lot like the one Mrs. Baker gave her husband when he started expressing his actual opinion of his brother in front of guests. Dr. Baker thought that expression was the most suspicious part of the entire conversation.

            “Again, yes and no.” Dr. Baker frowned. “That’s the trouble with old family stories, they get so twisted around after a generation or two. I tend to doubt the story that he was executed at age fourteen after he killed a servant. Or that his parents killed him themselves, in lieu of reporting it to the local authorities; while it wouldn’t be the worst thing a member of our family did it doesn’t sound like it would be very effective, even at the beginning of the century. And the story that he and one of the servants made a suicide pact is just some drivel made up by someone too fond of Shakespeare; children don’t jump off of buildings because they aren’t allowed to marry at fourteen. But he was said to have an avid interest in hunting from a very young age. Perhaps overeager, and didn’t take the proper precautions, and died as a result. Either that or that’s when he lost his eye, I suppose. I don’t think there’s any way to know at this point.”

            Dr. Baker turned and looked at the teenagers seriously.

            “There’s many theories. Personally, I suspect he died of the influenza that was going about that year. It was quite a violent strain, as I recall. A good number of the staff died that year as well.”

            “People have died in this house?” Adric gasped.

            “How many?” Nyssa asked. Dr. Baker gave a dismissive shrug.

            “This house has stood for nearly two hundred years. All that time, it was populated by a large staff as well as my family. I have no way of knowing exactly how many have died within these walls, but you shouldn’t be particularly surprised that they have.” He replied. As he spoke, a chill seemed to pass through the hallway, like a silent and invisible person sweeping past them, brushing each of the three with its icy fingers just to be sure they wouldn’t be ignored.

           

            Nyssa shivered, wrapping her hands around her arms and wishing, not for the first time that day, that she had worn her velvet. The air had a cold quality as if the fog had rolled in from an open window, but the air was still, with a stale, dusty scent to it. No, not entirely still, now that Nyssa was tensed she was sure that she felt a breath on the back of her neck, like a fourth person had joined them and even now hide behind her so that neither Adric nor Dr. Baker would see them or understand why Nyssa recoiled from them. She could feel this person’s hands hovering over her waist, waiting to grasp her suddenly and make her scream or to pull her violently into the darkness.

            “Heh.” they chuckled softly in her ear. Nyssa could stand it no more, she turned on her heel and cast a combative gaze… into empty darkness. Her brain seemed to go on twirling in her head after she stopped, or else the room was spinning around her.

            “Nyssa?” Adric asked, concern lacing his voice. “You’re white as a sheet…”

            “…why can no one else feel it?” Nyssa pleaded softly, her breath refusing to come to her. It felt as if she was being wound in layers and layers of silk scarves, softly but tightly pressing the air out of her lungs. Did that presence have its arms around her now, or was she being bound like a fly in a spider’s web?

           “There is evil in this house, I… I…”

           “Nyssa!” Adric exclaimed. He rushed forward and just managed to get between Nyssa and the floor before she landed. The position this put them in wasn’t very comfortable for Adric, and if Nyssa was conscious she probably wouldn’t like it very much either, but neither of them had knocked anything important against the ground. In Dr. Baker’s opinion, it was a rather overdramatic display.

           “Was that entirely necessary?” he asked airily, arching an eyebrow.

 

           Adric adjusted his grip on Nyssa, holding up her head as gently as he could manage while trying to free one hand. He didn’t want to slap her, but perhaps if he could just brush her face gently with his fingers, she might awaken. Failing that, she usually carried smelling salts in her pocket for just this sort of occasion.

            Dr. Baker looked down at the collapsed teenagers superciliously.

            “What _precisely_ are you trying to do, young man?” he asked. “I can’t help but feel that I ought to declare myself chaperone…”

            “I’m looking for her smelling salts!” Adric huffed, patting Nyssa’s pocket gently.

            “How terribly sweet.” Dr. Baker laughed without much humour. “She actually carries smelling salts. And here I thought they were only sold for show.”

            “Well, of course she does,” Adric grumbled. “This is a problem she’s had for some time.”

            “Oh? Dr. Baker asked airily. “Making dramatic pronouncements and appearing to faint?”

            “She _has_ fainted!” Adric snapped.

            “Has she indeed?” the doctor asked, bending closer, “Let me get a look at her-”

            “Don’t you touch her!” the boy cried, pulling her away. The man frowned and straightened his back.

           

            “Don’t be ridiculous, boy! I’m a doctor, not some sort of monster!” Dr. Baker shouted. “If your sister has actually fainted, then she will need some small looking after-“

            “I can look after her myself!” Adric snapped back. “I’ve been doing it long enough to know what she needs, and she doesn’t need any more of _your_ attention!”

            “I do have a medical degree, you know. My ministrations aren’t limited to stepping out of the dark and saying ‘boo’.” Dr. Baker replied irritably. “Besides, if either of you were actually in any danger, I fancy you would need far more protection than she does.”

            “That’s her business!” Adric retorted, but as he said it he realised it sounded very different than he meant it.

            “Her business? Her business! Her business, indeed!” Dr. Baker scoffed. “A fine pair you two make, the babes leading the babes! Am I to believe she follows you about so she might catch _you_ during one of _your_ fainting spells? Or is it merely her business to keep you from running your mouth at your elders, because in that case she’s doing a spectacularly bad job of it. I must say I would have thought more of the situation if it were a mutual one. But then, it’s hardly a partnership of any sort. You’re just her brother.”

            Adric glared at Dr. Baker. He didn’t understand, well how could he? Any relationship he had with Nyssa both was and was not incest all at once. Not only was she both his sister in that Dr. Davison had adopted both of them and not his sister in that he had fathered neither or them; but at least in Adric’s mind he was both courting her in that she accepted his affection knowing it was more than brotherly and not courting her in that neither of them had made any attempt to verbally formalise that relationship.

            The man and the lad glared at each other for a moment. Adric had faced down Tegan, and Dr. Baker had faced down his wife, and even if they hadn’t won those particular arguments that didn’t mean that they were going to let anyone less think that they were the most difficult person the other had dealt with.

           Dr. Baker started crossly lecturing him.

            “Oh, for one moment stop being such a—such a _child!_ You seem to have painted me as the dramatic villain in some jolly little adventure you and your sister have invented for yourselves. But you forget, what to you is a mere curiosity is my life; and it’s terribly rude of you to poke into it, especially if you’re to be treating me as an adversary the entire time! You’re too young to yet have learned that in life you have few enough allies without declaring anyone you dislike an enemy.” Dr. Baker huffed, “If I made enemies of people simply because I didn’t _like_ them, I would find it impossible to cross the street without being challenged to some manner of duel!”

            Adric frowned, hackles raised. This great fat oaf clearly hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about. Adric _could_ ingratiate himself to some of the most unpleasant people in the world, it was a skill he practised second only to his mathematical ability. Simply because he hadn’t chosen to do so to Dr. Baker didn’t mean he had lost the knack of it. Dr. Baker simply wasn’t worth his time.

 

            Dr. Baker didn’t appear to approve of Adric’s lack of a response, so he took a large breath and started again.

            “And for that matter, if sitting on the ground cradling her like a doll is your idea of caring for an unconscious person, I must say I’m less than impressed with your bedside manner-”

            “If you’ve got another lecture coming, I’m not interested,” Adric grumbled. “I’m sure I’ve heard it twice over from Dr. Davison.”

            “It’s hardly as if I enjoy lecturing you! Don’t you think I’ve got anything better to do that this time of day?” Dr. Baker huffed.

            “Then why aren’t you doing it?” Adric huffed right back.

           Dr. Baker frowned. There was just no reasoning with children. You talk to them sensibly, they ignored you. You yelled at them, they yelled back. He was increasingly pleased that he had none of his own and would find respite from what passed for a wit from a teenager at the end of the summer.

            “If it pleases his majesty,” Dr. Baker began sarcastically, “I’ll go and tell Dr. Davison one of his wards has taken a funny turn. And that another has fainted. Surely you won’t mind your guardian having a look at Nyssa?” He glared at Adric, Adric glared back at him, Nyssa remained unconscious[3], and Dr. Baker huffed in frustration. Grumbling angrily to himself, Dr. Baker swept away, colourful coattails disappearing into the shadows.

           After Dr. Baker had left, it occurred to Adric that “And miss Brown was just your ward.” would have been an acceptable retort had he thought of it in time. But he wasn’t sure if that was really something he wanted to discuss, least of all with Dr. Baker.

****

**_❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            Slowly, a thick black line broke the fog-white expanse in two, wavering like a mountain stream. Another line started, branching away in a twisted path.

            “ _There were three ravens sat in a tree, they were as black as black could be…_ ”

            The black line started again in another corner. Turlough looked up, still humming to himself, and compared his sketch to the view out of the window. The tree in his drawing was closer and clearer than the one outside the window, but the shape was starting to resemble its real-life counterpart. He carefully added another line.

            “ _…one of them said to his mate, ‘Where shall we our breakfast take’?”_ Turlough murmured to himself. He hadn’t spoken with either of the doctors, Mrs. Baker, or his siblings since his own breakfast. This didn’t bother him as much as it he thought it would.

            “ _With a down, down, derry derry down down.”_ he murmured to himself, scratching out another black twisted limb.

            “ _Down in yonder green field…”_

            “ _Down, hey down, hey down, hey down.”_ whispered a second voice.

            “ _There lies a knight slain ‘neath his shield…”_ Turlough continued softly. The reply of “ _Down, hey down, hey down, hey down._ ” was even softer than his own voice, but clear as a bell in the empty room. The voice was refined and feminine, but not at all nice.

            “ _His hounds they sleep down at his feet, so well can they their master keep…”_ he murmured softly, almost smiling at that line. It seemed that everyone in this world had a master they needed to serve. Turlough knew that better than anyone.

            “ _With a down, down, derry derry down down.”_ whispered the empty room. Turlough smiled to himself. It was nice to have a quiet moment alone. But then, Turlough was never _truly_ alone.

 

 ** _❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            “… _such hawks, such hounds, and such a lament…”_ Nyssa murmured. It was the first noise she had made for nearly an hour, and it startled Adric.

            “Nyssa?” he asked, tentatively. The girl whimpered and pulled her hands toward her face as if she were protecting herself or trying not to wake up. Whatever her intention, wake she did. The world was dark and confusing and she didn’t remember how she got here. Nyssa pushed herself into a sitting position, feeling worn but warm velvet under her hands. Blinking the clouds out of her eyes, Nyssa’s vision was filled with three comforting sights: rows upon rows of leather-bound books, a small but exuberant fire burning in the large and over-decorated fireplace, and standing in front of them, Adric, wearing his too-large school uniform and a concerned expression.

            “What happened?” asked Nyssa, touching her forehead.

            “We were standing in the hallway with Dr. Baker. He was being weird and trying to frighten us, as always, and you—” Adric paused. He wasn’t sure if he really ought to tell Nyssa about her own frightening announcement if she didn’t remember saying it. “—you said you didn’t feel safe. And then you fainted.” Adric finished lamely. He stuck his hands into his pockets so he’d stop worrying about what to do with them while he was talking.

            “You could have used my smelling salts.” said Nyssa, elegantly raising onto one elbow.

            “Normally I would have done, but… well, you said you hadn’t been getting much sleep.” Adric replied, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “And… you don’t always look peaceful when you faint. But you did this time, so I thought this might be the best sleep you’ve gotten all month and I didn’t want to wake you.”

            “So you were just waiting for me to wake up?” Nyssa asked cautiously.

            “No!” Adric said quickly, sounding slightly offended. “I was looking for any references to Jonathan Baker in the historical accounts.”

            “Oh.” Nyssa replied. She almost sounded disappointed. Adric privately lamented the hopeless possibility of girls making sense to him. Nyssa pulled herself into a sitting position. “Well, did you find anything?”

“Never mind that. What were you saying just now?” Adric asked. “About a lament?”

            “I don’t remember.” said Nyssa, touching her head. “I must have been dreaming. I can’t remember about what, though.” Not removing his gaze from her face, Adric sank onto the velvet next to Nyssa. She turned her eyes away, noticing that he still was holding the book he had been reading when she woke up. His hand rested on the cover, set between the two of them like a chaperone.

            “I haven’t been able to remember any of my dreams since we came here.” Adric admitted. Nyssa’s eyes grew with surprise and narrowed with mischief.

            “Adric, I thought you didn’t put any stock in dreams.” she chided. He shrugged defensively.

            “I don’t put any stock in what Tegan says, either, but if she stopped talking I’d think there was something odd going on.” he argued, clearly trying very hard to sound reasonable. And there was that frustrated pout of his, and Nyssa couldn’t help but smile when she saw it. As uncomfortable and mysterious as the house was, she could count on Adric to take any disorder of the natural world as he saw it as a personal insult. Perhaps it was not his most endearing quality, but it was very reassuring at the moment. Being with Adric was reassuring. Nyssa glanced around the library. It wasn’t the same one they had been in earlier. She wasn’t even sure if she had been in it before, despite the amount of exploring the gloomy weather had prompted.

 

            “Did you carry me here?” Nyssa asked. Adric nodded.

            “You weren’t as heavy as I thought you would be. You always seem like such a great weight if I’m trying to catch you, but once I’d actually picked you up carrying you wasn’t that difficult.” he explained, sounding quite surprised. Nyssa tried not to interpret that as a comment on her weight, with mixed results.

            “Hm.” she frowned, picking up the book he had been reading. Adric had the vague idea that he had said something wrong, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He took a moment to stare at the ceiling and privately lament his complete inability to follow a girl’s thought process. Of course, he reasoned, it was because it was irrational but lots of irrational things were to some extent predicable and so theoretically this ought to have also been so. But that was just another example of how the theoretical world was preferable to the actual one.

           He glanced over at Nyssa, who had picked up the book he had until then been holding. Her curls mainly massed at the back of her head like a sheaf of flowers or hard candy sticks, but a single ringlet was in the process of sliding over her shoulder. Her eyes were cast down at the book, her sylphlike face set in an intense expression. The only thing Adric could imagine comparing to the beauty of pure mathematics was a pretty girl deep in thought. Adric went slightly pink and privately admitted that the actual world had some distinct advantages over the theoretical one.

 

           “This was just another one of your usual fainting spells, wasn’t it?” Adric asked cautiously. Nyssa set down the book on her lap and looked at his face.

            “I’m quite alright.” she assured him. Which was more than Adric appeared to be. Nyssa was struck again with the effect this holiday had been having on Adric’s apparent health. Adric had never been an example of strapping male physique but at the moment he looked positively waifish. And unconvinced.

            “I’m _alright,_ Adric.” she repeated, moving one hand onto Adric’s. Whether or not this convinced him, Nyssa was unsure, but it did make him bite his lip and look into the fire. Nyssa smiled and opened the book up again. She was sure she had seen the name “Jonathan Baker” on the page the last time she was reading. Why couldn’t she remember what the paragraph actually said? This was the key to the mystery she had discovered on her first night in Wisteria Bay. This could lead to discovering what violent act had happened here, why she was so uneasy in these walls, why pain and sorrow were as much part of the house as brick and mortar.

            So why was she thinking about Adric instead?

 

            Nyssa cleared her throat nervously and kept her eyes on the page. She hoped that it appeared she was reading, and that soon she’d be able to actually _read._ It must be the dim light. The gaslights seemed weaker now than they had been they left the library, almost as if all the light in the room was cast by that tiny fire. It wasn’t as if the setting of the sun would be as much of a hindrance to the light as that blood-thick fog had been.

            “You ought to be more careful, Adric.” said Nyssa. “Tegan thinks you’re showing a particular favour towards me.”

           Adric frowned.

            “And you don’t?” he asked, sounding hurt. Nyssa kept her eyes on the paper and tried not to panic. Apparently, they were having this conversation, this conversation she had distinctly been avoiding, _right now._ She tried to collect herself and closed the book.

            “Adric,” Nyssa said slowly, “You know how fond I am of you-”

            “No I don’t.” he interrupted. “I know how fond I am of _you_ and I get quite scared those may be two very different things.” Nyssa sighed and allowed herself to look at Adric. As she suspected, he was staring at her intently. The expression on his face crushed her resolve. She opened her mouth, but no words found it. Why was he still staring at her? _What did he expect her to say?_

            “Nyssa, I- I-” Adric croaked, his voice sounding like a pottery jar shattering. _I can see how it would be a lot easier for someone to fall in love with you than it would be for someone to fall in love with me._ Adric thought. He immediately decided that that would be the worst possible thing to say at the moment, possibly because it might result in his bursting into embarrassingly childlike tears. He turned his face away, in case he didn’t need to actually say it to have that reaction.

            “…I can’t tell if you’re just humouring me, or if you actually _like_ me.” Adric croaked. He wanted to go on about being completely unsure about what liking him entailed, but couldn’t bring himself to actually saying the words. Which, unbeknownst to Adric, was just as well, because Nyssa was equally confused on this matter.

            “I do like you, Adric, I like you a great deal, but…” Nyssa trailed off. But she didn’t want to have this conversation today because her emotions were even more confused than usual. Adric turned a stony, dejected face towards Nyssa. Nothing good ever followed the word “but” and a long pause.

 

            “It’s this house, Adric.” said Nyssa, almost pleading. “It’s so full of echoes and shadows I’m not sure what I’m feeling and what this place is making me feel.” Adric huffed and fell back on the couch, his arms crossed protectively over his chest. He knew exactly how he felt when he was in Wisteria Bay, and it was if anything, the opposite of being around Nyssa.

“It’s strange,” Adric laughed hollowly.

            “What’s strange?” asked Nyssa.

            “Being here, reading about this family, after all… it’s nothing. I made a silly assumption once, and I only held onto it for a weekend, but…” he exhaled slowly. “You must promise me you won’t laugh.”

            “I’m sure I won’t.” said Nyssa, moving closer to Adric. He was smiling, but it was a rictus smile usually only seen on skeletons or people putting a lot of effort into not crying. Nyssa had rarely seen Adric so melancholy; he got upset often enough but then it was explosive and sulky. It wasn’t like him to be so withdrawn, especially not with her. Nyssa lay her hand over his on the sofa and gave it a comforting squeeze. This seemed to give him the strength to continue.

            “You know that I travelled with Dr. Baker when I was younger. Not our host, but his brother.”

            “Yes. The two of you visited my home before…” she trailed off. The subject was painful for both of them.

           “…before it became necessary for Dr. Davison to rescue you from it.”

           “It was no longer my home when Dr. Davison called on it.” Nyssa responded hollowly.

           “I’m so sorry.” said Adric. “I know what it is to lose one member of your family, but I’m lucky enough to have never had a chance to know my parents, let alone miss them.”

           “That’s hardly what I would call lucky.” Nyssa said stiffly.

           “…you looked happy, then.” he said weakly. “It looked so welcoming, to have a home like that.”

           “It certainly was a comfortable house. I’m reminded of it so by this place... The size of it, mostly, and the feeling of history.” Nyssa looked at Adric. “Do you know what I mean by that? Have you ever walked into a house and felt the footsteps of the people who had been there before you beneath your own feet?”

           “You know I haven’t.” Adric said a little more sharply than he intended.

           “I know you don’t feel things the way I do, but I just thought… now that you’ve been here for a while, you might have experienced it. Just a little. Maybe not actually _feeling_ it, but thinking about how many feet have crossed these floors, how many lives have passed within these walls…” Nyssa ran her hand over the velvet of the couch she’d woken up on.

           “…how many hands have touched this velvet. And, more then anything, how _empty_ this house is now. It’s like the shell of a dead animal left on the beach.”

           “That’s not what I’ve been thinking while we stay here.” Adric said darkly. He adjusted himself on the sofa and stared at the dark gray outside of the window. To him, it looked like utter nothingness. The absence of true light, or true dark, or anything at all. Zero. Not even a hole where things belonged, nothing negative, simply the absence of anything at all. If zero existed in a physical sense, a part of Adric deeper than his scholarly dismissal of such an absurd idea, thought it might look like this fog.

 

           “I thought that when Dr. Baker said that I needed to find a family to take care of me in England… I thought he was talking about himself. He and Miss De Vortrulander were so kind to me, they were so warm towards me, and… I got silly ideas in my head. I had never had a home like that, two parents, a fine house… we even had a dog! It was precisely…” Adric looked at the ceiling as if he could stop the tears by pouring them back into his eyes. “…precisely what I imagined the boys who had somewhere to go at the end of term were going home to. Precisely what the heroes of all those wretched novels we had to read had. And being here…” he buried his head into his hands and sniffed loudly.

           “…being here reminds me how utterly _stupid_ I was thinking that in one day I could be transformed from a ward of the school kept on purely for his scholarly achievements and the next some sort of English nobility.”

           “Are you not happy with Dr. Davison?” Nyssa asked quietly. She laid a hand in the crook of his elbow and looked at him seriously. “With us?”

Adric looked at her with evident pain.

           “Of course I am, but…” he gestured vaguely around them. “You can’t help but wonder what might have been.” He pulled away slightly.

           “I’m sorry I brought it up.” Adric sniffed gruffly.

           “I do understand.” Nyssa said softly. She stood up and walked towards a bookcase. She ran her hand over the top of a row of books and took away a thin coating of cobweb.

           “It hurts me to be in this house, too, Adric.” Nyssa said, without turning back to him and her voice almost a whisper. “I see this place and I think, perhaps this is how my old home looks. Perhaps one day, when the fighting is over in my homeland I might raise the capitol to buy it back, and all I would need to do is hire enough people to dust and paint and it would be back to its previous glory. And the town, too, supported by the estate, giving people good safe work inside my household.”

           She was smiling as she said this, her eyes unfocused as if she could see all across the European continent and several years and just make out her childhood home. That light faded from her eyes, and she turned back to Adric with a heavier note in her voice.

           “But I know that isn’t true. That can never happen. I know my home was burnt to the ground, the staff slaughtered like so much cattle. I know I can never go back.” Nyssa’s voice broke. “I couldn’t save them then, and now there isn’t anyone left to save.”

           “I didn’t mean to wax nostalgic… I’m sorry.”

           “I don’t mind.”

           “…it doesn’t really matter. It’s all gone now.”

           “Nyssa-” Adric said faintly, then stopped himself. He looked at her uncomfortably, but she was still staring into a world that no longer existed. “You’re much better at hiding your emotions than I ever could. But you needn’t, not with me.” Nyssa looked into the shadows of the room. If Adric wouldn’t meet her gaze, there was no reason to make it easy for him to change it.

           Nyssa was quite sure she would have been able to keep hold of her emotion, but then she caught sight of Adric. Tears still in his eyes, he rose from the sofa and before she knew what he was doing, he was crossing the room. She figured it out before he managed to embrace her and beat him to it by flinging herself into his arms. Now they were both crying, and both feeling extremely silly about it. But then even self-consciousness was washed away by the burst dam of until very recently repressed emotions. While both of them usually were extremely conscious of every second that passed between them in silence, neither of them would have been able to gauge how long they stood like that: arms wrapped tightly around one another and tears streaming from their eyes.

           Normally, they would have attempted to fill the silence with some attempt to sound clever or at least brave, but no matter what wealth of those aspects they had between them, they were very poor weapons against grief.

           Nor were they great aids to relationships. Even if Adric hadn’t been so abysmally bad at it, a few seconds of genuine compassion was a far greater aid to romance than any amount of flirting ever was. It was true that Adric wasn’t fully comfortable with expressing compassion either, but at least both he and Nyssa could tell when he was doing it. In the case of his flirting, it was usually only one of them at a time that cottoned onto it.

****

**_❦ ❦_** **_❦_**

 

            There may have been a day when Tegan was comfortable being left alone with her thoughts, but today was not that day. Her nightmares had become more frequent and each one seemed more confusing than the last. It wasn’t that she had been safe from nightmares when the family was in London, but they always seemed to stop dead when she awoke. The memories of these dreams didn’t haunt her waking world.

            Idly, Tegan switched colours of pastels. Despite the name of the medium, she was enjoying the intense effects she was creating. She was quite a good artist, with an exceptional talent for translating what was in her head to paper. Drawing realism was somewhat harder, as everything looked as if it had been translated through her perception of it. This created quite the row when Tegan had done a portrait of a short, plump and spotty Adric. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the boy; he simply had chosen to be the avatar of irritating arrogance. She didn’t understand what it was that Nyssa saw in him, and resented that whatever it was resulted in how much time the two had been spending together since the holiday started. Whether it was romance or mystery or simply a closer friendship than before, it left Tegan feeling isolated. Then again, it was easy to feel isolated in this cavernous house.

            Perhaps it was simply the situation that made her nightmares seem worse. Waking from a nightmare in Dr. Davison’s flat was a far more personable, comforting experience. Nyssa would often be woken up in the process, giving a sympathetic ear and a concerned friend the moment Tegan’s eyes opened. Sometimes the nightmares would be cut short by her sister taking hold of her shoulders and shaking her awake.

            It was harder to put bad dreams out of here mind when the waking world was such an excellent setting for it. It was just this house making her remember her dreams by looking like part of them. Perhaps her dreams weren’t getting worse at all, just easier to remember. Tegan doubted that explanation, but it was very comforting. There was some comfort in drawing some of the figures from her nightmares, as if she could take them out of her head by putting them on paper, than folding them away where she wouldn’t have to think about them anymore.

            Tegan sighed and looked at the smudges of red and purple on her hands. The drawing that transferred them onto her hardly seemed worth the mess it was creating. It was an ugly drawing, unsettling in the harsh angles and dark colours. For all the boldly coloured tints she had put on the paper, it was a dark, shadowy thing, that looked like the sort of thing children imagined lived under there beds.

            Tegan picked it up and looked at it. It _did_ look like a regular player in her nightmares, but not enough to satisfy her. And if anyone else saw it, they would wonder what had ever possessed her to draw it, when her usual pastel portraits were so dreamy and soft. She didn’t want to have that conversation, and she especially didn’t want to look at the drawing anymore. The young Australian turned her attention to the fire sulking in the grate, but not casting quite enough light or warmth to make Tegan truly happy to be inside out of the mists. She stood, then slowly and purposefully cast the drawing onto the fire.

            For a moment, the fire only took the white edges of the drawing, tracing fire around the heavy black shadows. Then it appeared to become part of the drawing itself, like Tegan had drawn a small purple-and-red serpent crawling through flames as if they were blades of grass. Then the paper curled, being consumed and twisting the snake as if it were in pain. The edge of a smile formed on Tegan’s lips. The snake’s gleaming yellow eyes kept staring out of the fire until the last curl of flame tore them from existence.

  


[1] He didn’t.

[2] He was.

[3] Making her by far the happiest of the three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original draft, this chapter was almost six times this long, but as I started editing I realised by the time the attention shifts off of Adric and Nyssa the chapter is already longer than any of the others have been.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set a few years before Waking Up, so Frobisher isn't yet born and Dr. Davison's household hasn't adjusted to Turlough quite yet. 
> 
> I love writing in the Society of Academics universe, and I'm very pleased to be doing so again. This largely came up as an excuse to write interactions between two of my favourite teams. And Turlough.


End file.
